LIBRARff 

UNIVERSITY^ 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


INDIVIDUALISM 


38?  tbt  §amc 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  STUDY  OF  ETHICS 

Crown  8vo.    Pp.  xi~383 
LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 


INDIVIDUALISM 

FOUR  LECTURES  ON  THE  SIGNIFICANCE 

OF    CONSCIOUSNESS    FOR 

SOCIAL  RELATIONS 


BY 


(MVARNER  FITE,  PH.D. 

STUART  PROFESSOR  OF  ETHICS,  PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY 


NEW  IMPRESSION 


LONGMANS,     GREEN     AND      CO. 

FOURTH  AVENUE  &  30TH  STREET,  NEW  YORK 
39  PATERNOSTER   ROW,  LONDON 

BOMBAY,  CALCUTTA,  AND  MADRAS 
1916 


Copyright,  ign,  by 
LONGMANS,  GHEEN,  AND  Co. 


Firit  edition.  December,  1910. 
New  Impression,  March  1916. 


FERRIS    PRINTING    COMPANY 
NEW  YORK,  N.  Y.,  U.  S.  A. 


AND  RESPECT 


PREFACE 

THE  four  "lectures"  forming  this  series  were  part  of 
the  program  of  public  lectures  given  at  the  University 
of  Chicago  in  the  Summer  of  1909.  They  were  prepared 
for  that  purpose,  yet  at  the  same  time,  hi  practically 
their  present  dimensions,  for  publication  in  book-form. 
In  revising  them  I  have  purposely  retained  the  form 
of  lecture  because,  in  the  statement  of  a  point  of  view 
so  avowedly  personal  and  addressed  so  frequently  to 
the  individual  experience  of  the  reader,  I  wished  to 
remain  on  terms  of  familiar  intercourse.  Nothing  has 
been  really  added  in  the  revision  except  the  divisions  I 
and  II  of  the  Third  Lecture.  The  first  of  these  addi- 
tions is  somewhat  technical  in  character,  but,  for  the 
student  of  philosophy  at  least,  the  points  treated  there 
are  too  important  to  be  omitted.  In  the  second  I  have 
embodied  a  formal  statement  of  the  ethical  doctrine, 
and  the  reader  who,  like  myself,  wishes  to  know  the  out- 
come of  a  book  before  engaging  to  read  it  may  find  this 
to  his  purpose.  He  will  also  find  a  full  analysis  of  the 
argument  in  the  table  of  contents. 

In  the  Third  Lecture  I  have  developed  the  ethical 
doctrine  through  a  sharp  criticism  of  the  view  of  my 
friend,  Professor  Dewey.  I  wrote  Professor  Dewey  of 
my  intention,  and  I  wish  to  express  my  appreciation 
of  his  cordial  response,  and  at  the  same  time  to  record 
my  many  positive  obligations  to  him,  both  intellectual 
—  as  the  text  will  show  —  and  personal.  The  criticism 
in  question  also  includes  Professor  Royce,  to  whose 

vii 


viii  Preface 

lectures  on  "The  World  and  the  Individual"  I  am 
indebted  for  probably  more  suggestions  than  I  can  dis- 
tinctly account  for.  It  is  part  of  my  individualism  to 
hold  that  one  may  be  both  warmly  appreciative  and 
independently  critical.  The  criticism  is  embodied  in  the 
text;  the  appreciation,  not  less  sincere,  I  wish  to  record 
here. 

To  state  a  clear  difference  of  opinion  is  less  embarrass- 
ing, however,  than  to  define  one's  relations  to  those 
standing  for  a  somewhat  similar  view.  So  far  as  I  am 
aware  no  one  has  appropriated  my  special  brand  of 
individualism  nor  made  quite  the  same  use  of  the  con- 
ception of  consciousness.  But  it  would  be  unjust  not 
to  recall  Professor  L.  F.  Ward's  "Psychic  Factors  of 
Civilization"  or,  in  a  work  on  the  significance  of  con- 
sciousness for  social  relations,  to  ignore  Professor  C.  H. 
Cooley's  "Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order"  and 
"Social  Organization."  The  last  of  these  reached  me 
too  late,  unfortunately,  to  claim  the  author's  support, 
or  partial  support,  for  the  conception  of  social  conscious- 
ness developed  in  the  text. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  my  friends  and  colleagues,  Pro- 
fessor C.  J.  Sembower  and  Professor  Frank  Aydelotte, 
who  have  very  kindly  read  the  manuscript  and  helped 
me  out  of  a  number  of  obscurities. 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE  I 
THE  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

I  INTRODUCTION 3 

§  i.  The  purpose  of  the  lectures  is  to  develop  the  conception  of 
the  individual  and  the  importance  of  the  individual  in  the  world. 
Their  occasion  is  to  be  found  in  the  prevailing  exaggeration  of  the 
social  and  depreciation  of  the  individual.  §  2.  The  theses  are: 
first,  that  the  individual  as  a  conscious  agent  is  the  source  and 
measure  of  all  value;  secondly,  that  the  interests  of  conscious 
individuals  are  essentially  harmonious;  thirdly,  however,  only  so 
far  as  they  are  conscious.  Hence,  two  main  theses:  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  individual  and  the  significance  of  consciousness. 

II  THE  Two  CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL 7 

§  3.  The  human  individual  has  two  contrasted  aspects,  the 
external  aspect,  as  he  appears  to  others,  the  internal  aspect,  as  he 
appears  to  himself.  §  4.  In  the  first  aspect  he  is  the  mechanical 
individual,  the  individual  seen  in  the  cold  light  of  science,  as  such 
a  material  object  in  space  and  time,  whose  movements  are  deter- 
mined by  the  operation  of  cause,  or  mechanical  force.  §  5.  For 
himself,  however,  in  his  internal  aspect,  his  actions  are  never  the 
effect  of  a  cause  but  the  expression  of  a  reason.  §  6.  Hence,  the 
conscious  individual  is  defined  by  the  meaning  of  the  world  for  him 
and  the  purpose  which  he  seeks  to  accomplish  there,  —  which 
meaning  is  necessarily  his  own  meaning.  §  7.  The  two  individuals 
are  not  coextensive. 

III  THE  MECHANICAL  SOCIAL  ORDER 16 

§  8.  Mechanical  individuals  are  as  such  mutually  exclusive.  §  9. 
Which  means  that  each  one's  consumption  of  goods  reduces  the 
quantity  consumable  by  the  others.  §  10.  And  therefore  that  their 
"interests"  are  mutually  hostile.  §  n.  Against  this  it  may  be 
urged  that  human  individuals,  even  as  mechanical  facts,  are  highly 
adjustable;  but  apart  from  conscious  control  nothing  is  adjust- 
able. §  12.  The  mechanical  individual  is  the  presupposition  of  the 
u 


x  Contents 

so-called  laws  of  human  conduct.  §  13.  Those  holding  this  con- 
ception may  be  interested  in  social  reform;  but  their  attitude  means 
that  the  reform  is  to  be  effected  by  themselves,  not  by  the  individ- 
uals reformed.  §  14.  And  their  only  possible  aim  is,  not  a  unity 
of  interests,  but  a  stable  equilibrium  based  upon  mutual  sacrifice. 
§  15.  Hence,  the  mechanical  ideal  of  social  order  is  an  equilibrium 
of  forces,  which  may  be  regarded  as  socialistic  or  individualistic, 
without,  however,  altering  the  facts. 

IV  THE  IDEALISTIC  SOCIAL  ORDER 25 

§  1 6.  Idealistic  theories  affirm  generally  that  the  interests  of 
individuals  are  essentially  in  harmony,  but  without  deriving  this 
from  any  "essential"  attribute  of  the  individual;  the  essential 
attribute  required  by  the  logic  of  idealism  is  consciousness. 
§  17.  The  ends  of  a  conscious  individual  must,  in  last  analysis,  be 
always  his  own;  but  any  conflict  of  ends  between  individuals  pre- 
supposes, not  purposes,  but  blind  demands  for  mechanical  posses- 
sion, involving  temporal  and  spatial  displacement.  §  18.  But 
suppose  that  ends  do  conflict?  Then,  as  conscious  ends,  the  conflict 
may  be  removed  by  adjustment.  §  19.  Self-adjustability  is  implied 
in  the  very  idea  of  a  conscious  as  distinct  from  a  merely  mechanical 
being;  the  inevitableness  of  mechanical  action  presupposes  uncon- 
sciousness. §  20.  In  social  relations  the  possibilities  of  adjustment 
are  enormously  increased  through  communication.  §  21.  Of  a 
case  of  actual  conflict  it  may  always  be  said  that  the  purposes  in 
question  are  not  fully  self-conscious.  §  22.  Hence,  the  essential 
harmony  of  interests  presupposes,  not  a  preestablished  harmony 
of  instincts,  but  the  fact  that  the  individuals,  as  conscious,  know 
each  other.  §  23.  Which  common  sense  expresses  by  saying  that 
between  intelligent  men  there  should  be  no  real  ground  for  dispute. 
§  24.  The  spiritual  or  the  merely  mechanical  character  of  the  har- 
mony will  be  a  question  of  the  fineness  and  richness  of  the  individ- 
ual interests  thus  adjusted. 

V  THE  Two  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURE 41 

§  25.  Every  social  adjustment  involves  a  transaction  with 
Nature,  and  thus  raises  the  question  whether  Nature  can  be  con- 
trolled. §  26.  For  the  mechanical  view  there  should  be  no  pos- 
sibility of  control;  yet  a  certain  measure  of  control  is  commonly 
assumed,  decreasing  toward  a  limit  fixed  by  "Nature's  scanty 
supply,"  as  expressed  in  the  law  of  diminishing  returns.  §  27.  This 
ultimate  scarcity  is  presupposed  in  the  ultimate  incompatibility  of 
individual  interests.  §  28.  And  the  view  of  Nature  as  a  deter- 
minately  fixed  fact  fulfils  the  logic  of  the  mechanical  theory. 
§  29.  Over  against  this  is  set  a  law  of  increasing  returns  due  to 


Contents  xi 

cooperation;  but  the  possible  increase  of  returns  is  commonly  as- 
sumed to  be  limited.  §  30.  In  the  logic  of  idealism  the  law  is  valid 
without  limit  for  the  cooperation  of  conscious  agents;  any  actual 
limit  means  that  the  combination  of  activities  is  not  fully  self- 
conscious.  §31.  Hence,  for  idealism  Nature  is  not  a  fixed  fact 
but  an  indefinitely  elastic  fact.  This  is  presupposed  in  the  essen- 
tial harmony  of  interests.  §  32.  And  is  in  accord  with  idealistic 
metaphysics  generally.  §  33.  It  is  also  supported  by  the  actual 
history  of  civilization.  §  34.  Which  of  these  two  views  is  true? 
The  next  lecture  is  to  show  that  both  are  true,  each  as  the  obverse 
of  the  other.  §  35.  Which  means  that,  since  we  are  not  limited 
to  the  alternatives  of  self-interest  and  social  welfare,  self-sacrifice 
is  not  a  valid  moral  ideal. 


LECTURE  II 
THE  INDIVIDUAL  AS  A  CONSCIOUS  AGENT 

I  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 55 

§  36.  Consciousness  may  be  defined  as  many  and  one  in  contrast 
to  material  things  which  are  many  or  one.  §  37.  Coexistent 
material  things,  such  as  billiard-balls,  have  to  be  mutually  exclu- 
sive; the  reality  of  the  corresponding  ideas  is  their  meaning,  which 
involves  both  mutual  inclusiveness  and  individual  distinctness. 
§  38.  The  successive  terms  of  a  mechanical  process  are  mutually 
exclusive,  each  being  determined  solely  by  the  present  force;  a 
conscious  activity  is  determined  at  each  moment  by  present,  past, 
and  future.  §  39.  Hence,  what  is  paradoxical  for  physical  science 
—  to  be  both  here  and  there,  now  and  then,  —  is  for  consciousness 
a  necessity  of  its  being.  §  40.  The  separate  mental  states  of 
empirical  psychology  are  due  to  a  mechanical  metaphor;  the  states 
of  a  conscious  being  must  include  each  other.  §  41.  So  of  his 
several  aims;  a  conscious  being  cannot  be  a  bundle  of  instincts. 
§  42.  Consciousness  involves  selection,  but  not  selection  by  rejec- 
tion; the  measure  of  consciousness  is  the  extent  to  which  all  the 
ends  are  realized,  each  distinctly,  yet  all  at  once.  §  43.  Which  is 
also  the  measure  of  personality;  for  it  is  consciousness  that  makes 
one  the  same  person.  §  44.  On  the  basis  of  this  definition  we  are 
very  imperfectly  conscious. 

II  THE  DEGREES  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 70 

§  45.  According  to  our  definition  there  is  no  distinction  between 
consciousness  and  self-consciousness  except  as  a  matter  of  degree. 
§  46.  The  higher  degree  of  consciousness  is  indicated  by  the  broader 


xii  Contents 

range  of  comparison,  or  more  and  one.  §  47.  This  involves  a 
superior  "clearness."  §  48.  The  different  degrees  of  consciousness 
in  man  and  animals  are  differences  in  the  range  of  comparison  of 
the  present  thought.  §  49.  Likewise  the  different  degrees  of  cul- 
ture among  men;  common  opinion  to  the  contrary,  the  more  cul- 
tivated man  is  more  intensely  conscious,  even  of  the  world  just 
before  him.  §  50.  Yet  still  very  imperfectly  conscious;  hence  all 
human  consciousness  is  more  or  less  a  series  of  relatively  exclusive 
states. 

III  THE  CONSCIOUS  INDIVIDUAL 80 

§  51.  The  life  of  the  unthinking  man  is  determined  by  present 
conditions,  the  absence  of  thought  excluding  a  reference  to  ends 
beyond.  §  52.  It  is  thus  determined  by  natural  law,  which,  in 
physics  or  economics,  presupposes  an  unconscious  subject.  §  53. 
With  the  increase  of  consciousness  past  and  future  aims  are  brought 
into  action;  the  present  act  is  then  individuated  to  satisfy,  not  a 
common  good,  but  the  system  of  goods  representing  all  the  aims  of 
the  agent  in  question.  §  54.  Which  system  is  more  individual  to 
the  extent  that  the  self-consciousness  is  comprehensive  and  inclu- 
sive. §55.  This  principle  has  several  corollaries :  first,  the  appear- 
ance of  consciousness  upon  the  scene  means  that  a  new  and  original 
force  is  inserted  into  the  economy  of  the  world,  with  revolutionary 
effect.  §  56.  Secondly,  this  new  force  is  in  the  form  of  a  personal 
activity  radiating  from  yourself  as  its  heart  and  center.  §  57. 
Thirdly,  through  this  self-consciousness  you  become  a  free  agent 
and  superior  to  natural  law.  §  58.  And  fourthly,  an  end  in  and 
for  yourself.  §  59.  And  as  an  end  for  yourself,  not  a  means  for 
the  ends  of  others,  whether  of  society,  or  Nature,  or  God.  §  60.  As 
illustrated  by  the  so-called  race-suicide.  §  61.  The  unity  of  the 
conscious  individual  is  not  the  unity  of  the  melting-pot,  nor  the 
hierarchical  unity  of  the  stock-corporation,  as  implied  in  the  func- 
tional theory  of  consciousness;  only  that  life  is  truly  conscious 
which  is  illumined  throughout  by  the  direct  presence  of  the  whole 
personal  self.  §  62.  Which  is  illustrated  by  the  mental  attitude 
involved  in  the  creation  or  appreciation  of  a  work  of  art;  here  it  is 
clear  that  individuality  is  intensified  by  self-expansion. 

IV  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS 98 

§  63.  It  is  commonly  assumed  that  a  group  of  conscious  individ- 
uals constitutes  as  such  a  conscious  society;  but  any  relation 
between  individuals  as  conscious  must  be  a  consciousness  of  rela- 
tion. §  64.  As  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  involves  the 
unity  and  distinctness  of  his  several  aims,  so  a  conscious  society 
is  constituted  by  mutual  understanding  and  individual  distinct- 


Contents  xlii 

ness,  through  intercommunication.  §  65.  Through  this  process 
the  individual  reaches  a  clearer  definition  of  himself;  yet  the 
individual  is  not  the  product  of  the  social  order,  nor  a  term  in  an 
exclusively  social  situation.  §66.  Nor  does  the  "social  person- 
ality" of  any  group  diminish  the  individuality  or  personal  im- 
portance of  its  members.  §  67.  Increase  of  social  consciousness 
involves  the  formation  of  personal  relations  covering  a  wider  range. 
§  68.  Which,  in  last  analysis,  gives  the  meaning  of  the  process  of 
civilization.  §  69.  Over  against  the  social  consciousness  there  is  a 
social  unconsciousness,  illustrated,  at  its  extreme,  in  the  mutual 
indifference  of  the  members  of  an  animal  herd.  §  70.  Which  is 
not  specially  noticeable  in  the  smaller  human  groups,  but  character- 
istic of  the  larger,  such  as  the  nation.  §  71.  But  this  narrowness 
of  personal  sympathies  is  more  or  less  counteracted  by  the  higher 
culture,  through  which  men  of  distant  times  and  places  are  brought 
into  personal  relations. 

V  THE  CONSCIOUS  SOCIETY in 

§  72.  The  practical  result  of  social  consciousness,  as  here  defined, 
is  social  harmony  and  individual  freedom;  mutual  hostility  and 
repression  are  due  to  social  unconsciousness.  §  73.  The  latter  is 
illustrated  in  the  mob,  a  state  of  mutual  unconsciousness,  in  which 
the  relations  of  men  are  precisely  those  of  the  billiard-balls  on  the 
table.  §  74.  It  is  illustrated  also  in  present  economic  relations, 
and  serves  to  explain  the  conflict  of  economic  interests.  §  75.  Also 
the  operation  of  impersonal  economic  laws.  §  76.  To  the  argument 
that  civilization  has  only  made  brutality  more  refined  it  may  be 
replied  that,  through  the  increase  of  self-consciousness,  even  war 
is  made  a  more  logical  and  mutually  serviceable  activity.  §  77. 
The  best  illustrations  of  the  thesis  are  given  by  the  distinctively 
personal  relations,  which  include  those  formed  through  literature 
and  art.  §  78.  Here  it  is  shown  that  independence  of  thought  and 
character,  so  far  from  involving  an  invidious  distinction,  are  indis- 
pensable for  any  truly  social  life.  §  79.  The  personal  relation 
involves:  first,  that  your  fellow  by  his  difference  opens  the  way 
to  a  larger  expansion  of  self;  secondly,  that  he  furnishes  the  basis 
of  contrast  by  means  of  which  you  find  yourself;  yet,  thirdly,  not 
as  a  mere  means  for  you  as  end,  but,  so  far  as  he  is  a  genuine  per- 
sonality, as  a  coordinate  end.  §  80.  This  view  of  the  situation, 
while  furnishing  no  ground  for  an  undiscriminating  optimism,  should, 
however,  strengthen  and  justify  our  faith  in  the  intellectual  life. 


xiv  Contents 

LECTURE  III 

INDIVIDUALITY  AND   SOCIAL  UNITY 

I  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL        135 

§  81.  In  eighteenth-century  thought  the  individual  is  the  prior 
cause  of  society;  in  later  thought  the  relation  is  reversed.  §  82.  So 
of  the  development  of  character  in  the  individual;  for  the  earlier 
view  the  egoistic,  for  the  later  the  social  impulses  are  prior.  §  83. 
The  later  view  is  exemplified  in  the  "Ethics"  of  Dewey  and  Tufts, 
according  to  whom  the  history  of  moral  ideas  shows  a  development 
toward  individuality,  but  chiefly,  it  seems,  for  the  better  attain- 
ment of  a  common  good.  §  84.  And  the  harmony  of  interests  is 
possible  only  because  the  desires  of  the  individual  are  intrinsically 
"social,"  or  altruistic;  though  "social"  is  also  defined  as  "objec- 
tive" or  "disinterested."  §85.  Virtue  consists,  then,  in  losing 
yourself  in  disinterested  ends.  §  86.  The  view  is  an  expression  of 
a  historic  tendency  of  thought  to  conceive  the  world-process  as  a 
return  to  an  original  unity,  from  which  the  individualism  of  modern 
life  constitutes  a  decadent  aberration.  §  87.  Argument  against 
the  view:  for  a  conscious  being  the  criterion  of  value  is  not  natural 
impulse  but  impulse  enlightened  and  sophisticated.  §  88.  That 
the  child  knows  others  before  he  knows  himself  rests  upon  the 
"psychological  fallacy"  of  supposing  the  child  to  have  the  same 
consciousness  of  his  situation  that  we  should  have;  knowledge  of 
self  and  of  others  is  necessarily  coordinate.  §  89.  The  imitation- 
theory  fails  to  distinguish  between  conscious  and  unconscious  imita- 
tion; conscious  imitation  is  always  the  expression  of  personal 
choice.  §  90.  Likewise  conscious  heredity;  the  hereditary  impulse 
become  conscious  constitutes  a  new  and  original  force,  and  heredi- 
tary tendencies  toward  the  common  good  are  reorganized  for  the 
individual  good.  §91.  The  same  criticism  applies  to  the  primitive 
disinterestedness  of  desire;  an  infant  consciously  grasping  an  object 
must  know  himself  as  well  as  the  object.  §  92.  And  the  distinction 
still  holds  if  self  is  defined  as  the  body.  §  93.  The  principle  of  find- 
ing yourself  to  lose  yourself  again  is  self-contradictory;  and  the 
popular  condemnation  of  "self-consciousness"  rests  upon  a  mis- 
conception. §  94.  The  superior  sociality  of  primitive  life  is  another 
case  of  the  psychological  fallacy;  all  that  is  indicated  is  a  lack  of 
individual  distinction.  §  95.  The  whole  argument  for  the  priority 
of  the  social  rests  upon  a  confusion  of  "associated"  activities  with 
"disinterested." 

II  THE  FORMAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  INDIVIDUALISM 170 

§  96.  In  contrast  to  the  view  under  criticism,  the  theory  of 
individualism  stands  for  the  following:  First,  by  nature,  in  the 


Contents  xv 

brute  sense  of  the  term,  men  are  to  be  conceived  neither  as  self- 
regarding  nor  as  social-regarding,  but  as  impersonal  mechanical 
facts.  §  97.  Secondly,  so  far  as  the  individual  becomes  self-con- 
scious he  becomes  never  less  self-regarding  but  more  so.  §  98.  But, 
thirdly,  the  same  knowledge  that  reveals  himself  shows  him  to  be 
living  in  a  world  with  others  whose  conduct  determines  for  him  the 
conditions  through  which  his  own  interests  are  to  be  satisfied,  and 
whose  interests  must  therefore  be  considered.  §  99.  Fourthly,  the 
only  method  of  harmonizing  these  interests  is  by  technical  adjust- 
ment of  activities  and  conditions,  which,  as  against  Dewey,  satisfies 
the  demands  both  of  logic  and  morality.  §  100.  As  against  Tufts, 
individualism  holds  that  selfishness  is  ennobled  in  becoming  delib- 
erate and  intelligent.  What  individualism  stands  for  is:  intelli- 
gent self-assertion. 

Ill  JUSTICE  AND  BROTHERLY  LOVE .     183 

§  101.  What  conception  of  social  unity  appeals  to  us  as  ideally 
good  or  beautiful?  The  two  conceptions  prominent  in  modern 
European  thought  are  justice  and  love,  the  first  an  inheritance 
from  the  Greeks,  the  second  from  the  Hebrews  through  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  §  102.  The  latter,  typically  oriental,  stands  for 
humility  and  self-sacrifice,  and  aims  to  efface  all  individual  differ- 
ences in  a  unity  of  personal  feeling.  §  103.  The  Greek  conception 
stands  for  self-respect  and  social  justice;  it  emphasizes  knowledge 
and  its  ideal  is  a  unity  which  fulfils  the  variety  of  individual  in- 
terests. §  104.  The  Christian  ideal  rests  upon  the  idea  of  the 
family,  the  Greek  upon  that  of  the  state,  or  of  an  association  or 
club;  and  in  modern  life  the  one  is  a  Sunday,  the  other  a  week-day 
ideal.  §  105.  Now  the  ideal  of  individualism  is  justice,  yet  not 
excluding  love;  justice  is  the  test  of  love  and  love  the  refinement 
of  justice.  §  106.  The  contrast  of  love  and  justice  has  two  aspects: 
first,  mysticism  versus  realism.  Mysticism  calls  the  absence  of 
distinction  reality,  hence  the  absence  of  individual  distinction  love. 
§  107.  Christianity  and  communism  are  alike  mystical,  likewise 
socialism  when  it  stands  for  a  communism  of  productive  activity. 
§  108.  But  the  absence  of  distinction  is  not  reality  but  just  nothing, 
absence  of  property-distinction  may  be  only  indifference,  and 
absence  of  free  competition  mere  inactivity.  §  109.  And  the 
social  problem  is  not  of  the  obliteration  of  differences  but  of  their 
free  coordination.  §  no.  The  family  ideal  presupposes  both 
coordination  and  freedom,  the  conditions  being  specially  favorable 
for  mutual  understanding.  §  in.  Conditions  are  different  in  the 
larger  social  world,  and  love  in  the  more  intensive  sense  is  a  problem 
rather  than  a  fact.  §  112.  Yet  civilization  stands  for  a  relatively 
high  degree  both  of  sympathy  and  united  interest,  due,  however, 


xvi  Contents 

to  the  enlargement,  through  scientific  study,  of  the  possibilities 
both  of  nature  and  of  the  social  order,  —  through  which  alone 
conflicting  interests  can  be  brought  to  a  real  unity.  §  113.  This 
scientific  organization  of  society  is  justice,  or  love  become  real 
through  technical  adjustment.  §  114.  The  second  aspect  of  the 
contrast  is  estheticism  versus  intellectualism,  the  latter  representing 
the  practical  and  the  utilitarian.  §  115.  Beauty  differs  from  utility 
in  representing  a  finer  and  more  comprehensive  realization  of  more 
personal  ends.  §  116.  Esthetic  appreciation  is  finer  and  more 
concrete  than  scientific  knowledge,  but  relatively  opaque  as  regards 
meaning;  science  is  clearer  and  more  systematic  but  more  ab- 
stract. §  117.  The  superiorities  of  esthetic  appreciation  are 
enlisted  to  show  that  love  is  superior  to  justice.  §  118.  As  art 
is  irrelevant  to  logic,  so  is  love  to  justice.  §  119.  But  illogical  art 
and  illogical  love  are  equally  false,  even  from  an  esthetic  stand- 
point. Either  beauty  or  love  grasped  only  in  esthetic  appreciation 
is  only  partially  realized;  as  conscious  beings  our  ideal  is  a  fully 
self-conscious  realization  of  the  values  of  life.  §  120.  Not,  there- 
fore, abstract  calculation  in  place  of  feeling,  but  an  ideal  combining 
immediate  realization  in  feeling  with  transparent  clearness  of  idea, 
which,  in  last  analysis,  is  the  ideal  of  science  and  art  alike.  §  121. 
And  also  the  meaning  of  the  Greek  conception  of  justice.  §  122. 
Justice  amis,  then,  at  a  perfect  harmony  and  perfect  individual 
freedom,  which,  in  the  end,  is  the  only  real  meaning  of  love. 

IV  SELF-SACRIFICE  AND  MERIT 221 

§  123.  Granting  even  that  justice  is  beautiful,  still  is  it  moral? 
Can  merit  be  won  except  through  self-sacrifice?  §  124.  The  ques- 
tion presupposes,  not  a  strictly  moral,  but  a  romantic  ideal.  §  125. 
And  merit  is  won,  not  by  sacrifice,  but  by  consideration,  —  inclusion 
of  your  fellow  in  your  plans;  such  consideration  deserves  a  return 
of  consideration  without  reference  to  cost.  §  126.  And  in  last 
analysis  merit  is  won  by  any  determination  to  consider  ends  beyond 
the  present;  even  prudential  calculation  is  so  far  virtuous,  however 
narrowly  selfish.  §127.  The  claim  that  merit  involves  sacrifice  re- 
gards thinking  as  an  expenditure  of  energy;  but  the  energy  expended 
upon  a  given  object,  hence  the  sacrifice  involved  in  a  given  ser- 
vice, is  smaller  in  proportion  as  it  is  a  thinking  expenditure. 
§  128.  Nor  would  virtue  be  lacking  in  a  finally  perfect  social  state, 
provided  it  were  self-conscious  state. 


Contents  xvii 

LECTURE  IV 

INDIVIDUAL  RIGHTS  AND  THE  SOCIAL  PROBLEM 

I  THE  THEORY  OF  NATURAL  RIGHTS 231 

§  129.  The  older  theory  of  natural  rights  assumed  that  men 
were  created  free  and  society  was  the  result  of  a  contract.  §  130. 
This  theory  being  disproved,  the  later  theory  holds  that  the  individ- 
ual is  the  product  of  society  and  his  rights  are  conferred  by  the  state. 
§  131.  But  the  term  "product"  applies  only  to  mechanical  bodies; 
the  conscious  individual  is  an  original  force.  §  132.  He  has  there- 
fore a  natural  right  to  realize  his  ends;  not  a  right  by  inheritance, 
or  from  society,  but  because  he  is  a  conscious  agent  and  knows  what 
he  is  doing.  All  rights  and  values  are  for  consciousness  and  created 
by  consciousness,  and  all  consciousness  is  individual.  §  133.  Since 
consciousness  is  a  matter  of  degree,  the  individual  right  is  a  matter 
of  degree.  §  134.  And  the  rights  of  intelligent  (i.e.,  conscious) 
beings  cannot  so  far  conflict;  the  social  relation  both  confirms  the 
individual  right  and  creates  a  mutual  obligation.  §  135.  Yet  an 
individual  right  is  not  a  question  of  social  service;  an  intelligent 
activity  is  necessarily  socially  serviceable,  but  the  obligation  rests 
upon  the  others  to  help  themselves.  §  136.  The  assertion  of  a  right 
rests  upon  the  same  ground  as  the  assertion  of  a  fact;  not  upon 
social  approval,  but  upon  inner  consistency.  §  137.  The  right  of  a 
pupil  to  the  service  of  a  teacher  depends  upon  the  exercise  of  respon- 
sible intelligence  on  the  part  of  himself;  by  which,  in  realizing  the 
teacher's  right,  he  creates  an  obligation.  §  138.  Similar  relations 
exist  between  capital  and  labor  and  between  the  men  of  wealth  and 
the  general  public;  the  public  has  no  special  rights  because  it  is 
public.  §  139.  For  the  same  reason  there  is  no  special  "right  of 
private  enterprise"  as  against  state-enterprise;  it  is  a  question  of 
the  location  of  the  intelligence.  §  140.  Natural  rights  have  suf- 
fered from  being  confused  with  the  rights  of  corporations;  but  the 
corporation  is  indeed  the  creation  of  the  state  and,  as  at  present 
constituted,  has  no  natural  rights.  §  141.  In  what  sense  is  the 
doctrine  one  of  "natural"  rights?  In  the  sense  that  the  right  is 
determined,  not  by  the  state,  but  by  the  intelligence  of  the  individ- 
ual, and  that  the  nature  of  the  individual  is  expressed,  not  in  original 
instinct,  but  in  instinct  become  self-conscious  and  intelligent. 
§  142.  Similarly,  a  "social  contract"  is  involved  in  the  very  idea 
of  the  social  relations  of  conscious  beings. 

II  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE        260 

§  143.  What  reality  belongs  to  a  right  not  yet  recognized?  The 
reality  of  any  true  idea;  that  of  a  rational  claim  addressed  to 


xviii  Contents 

rational  beings.  §  144.  As  such  it  will  compel  recognition  or,  if 
not  recognized,  enforce  itself.  §  145.  Does  this  justify  the  right 
of  the  monopolist  or  the  corrupt  politician  to  what  he  gets?  Yes, 
as  against  the  less  intelligent,  but  not  as  against  the  more  intelli- 
gent; but  the  superior  intelligence  must  prove  itself  by  ability  to 
meet  present  methods  upon  their  own  grounds.  §  146.  But  what 
is  intelligence,  and  how  distinguished  from  mere  cleverness?  By 
breadth  of  vision  (in  a  coherent  view)  and  keenness  of  insight;  on 
this  basis  constructive  thought  stands  for  a  higher  degree  of  intelli- 
gence. §  147.  And  even  a  meanly  self-seeking  cleverness,  become 
constructive,  has  become  socially  serviceable.  §  148.  This  aca- 
demic conception  of  intelligence  is  also  at  bottom  the  popular  con- 
ception, in  which,  again,  in  last  analysis,  intelligence  is  identified 
with  virtue.  §  149.  It  is  the  conception  implied  in  the  demand  for 
fair  competition.  §  150.  And  in  personal  relations  the  rights  of  the 
intelligent  are  instinctively  appreciated. 

III  INDIVIDUALISM  AND  SOCIALISM 274 

§  151.  Older  individualism  was  dominated  by  the  idea  of  laissez 
faire:  hence  the  antithesis  of  individualism  and  socialism.  §  152. 
In  our  own  view  there  is  no  antithesis,  so  far  as  "socialism"  stands 
simply  for  a  comprehensive  organization  of  society.  §  153.  For 
the  conscious  agent  freedom  is  freedom  of  choice,  and  this  is  a  ques- 
tion, not  of  absence  of  impediment,  but  of  presence  of  variety  of 
opportunity;  which  is  secured  only  through  social  organization. 
§  154.  But  organization  for  freedom  must  be  distinguished  from 
enforcement  of  the  common  good,  which  is  at  variance  both  with 
the  idea  of  social  organization  and  with  the  direction  of  its  historical 
development.  §  155.  The  idea  of  organization  for  freedom  is 
typified  in  the  pure-food  laws,  and  would  be  further  realized  in  the 
standardization  of  all  merchandise.  §  156.  In  the  matter  of  rail- 
way freight-rates  it  calls  for  apportionment  of  rate  to  service  rather 
than  equalization  of  burdens,  for  justice  rather  than  brotherly  love; 
"what  the  traffic  will  bear"  is  not  an  intelligent  principle.  §  157. 
And  in  general  an  individualistic  organization  of  society  calls  for 
a  careful  analysis  of  accounts,  as  well  as  a  careful  distinction  of 
the  several  state-functions,  as  the  indispensable  condition  of  intelli- 
gent self-government. 

IV  THE  LOGIC  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROBLEM 292 

§  158.  In  the  theory  of  the  lectures  the  perfect  harmony  of 
interests  is  reserved  for  the  perfectly  conscious;  what  relevance 
has  this  for  us,  who,  incapable  of  becoming  perfectly  conscious, 
must  compromise?  It  furnishes  the  chiefly  important  point  in  the 
compromise,  namely,  the  idea  to  be  realized;  upon  the  clearness  of 


Contents  xix 

which  will  depend  the  significance  of  the  compromise.  §  159.  The 
idea  is:  first,  that  the  social  good  is  not  a  common  good,  but  a 
mutual  and  distributive  good;  the  logic  of  the  common  good  is  the 
logic  of  ignorance,  or  the  logic  of  chance.  §  160.  Secondly,  that 
the  social  problem  is  a  technological  problem,  calling,  not  for  a 
change  of  heart,  but  for  a  change  of  conditions.  §  161.  Thirdly, 
that  individual  duty  is  a  matter  of  enlightened  self-interest  and  prac- 
tical wisdom.  §  162.  This  is  not  to  exalt  narrowness  of  aim,  but 
simply  to  repeat  that,  only  as  adjustment  is  a  fact,  has  either 
freedom  or  unity  a  real  meaning. 


INDIVIDUALISM 

LECTURE  I 

THE  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL 
I  INTRODUCTION 

§  i.  The  purpose  of  these  lectures  is  to  develop  the 
conception  of  the  individual  and  to  make  clear  the  sig- 
nificance and  importance  of  the  individual  in  the  world. 
The  reasons  which  lead  me  to  select  this  as  a  timely  and 
important  topic  are  to  be  found  in  the  present  dominant 
view  of  nature  and  of  man  which  Tennyson  has  sum- 
marized in  the  lines: 

"  So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life." 

Not  only  is  "Nature"  (of  the  biological  theory  of  evolu- 
tion) so  careful  of  the  type  as  to  be  careless  of  the  single 
life.  The  idea  is  characteristic  of  all  of  our  later  nine- 
teenth-century thought,  including  those  departments  of 
thought  which  deal  with  the  various  aspects  of  human 
life.  These,  known  formerly  as  the  moral  sciences,  are 
now"  the  "social"  sciences.  And  the  purpose  of  the 
change  of  term  is  not  merely  to  note  that  the  life  of 
thinking  beings  is  one  of  communication  and  mutual 
interest;  it  is  rather  to  substitute  for  all  mutual  and 
individual  interests  a  so-called  common  interest.  Hu- 
manity is  now  "society,"  —that  and  nothing  more; 

3 


4  Conception  of  the  Individual 

and  society  is  an  organism,  of  which  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  a  temporary  function.  Society,  in  other 
words,  is  the  concrete  reality,  of  which  the  individual 
is  a  mere  abstraction. 

We  are  therefore  prepared  to  hear  from  contemporary 
ethics  that  "all  morality  is  social";  that  goodness  is 
synonymous  with  altruism;  and  that  reason  and  duty 
can  now  dictate  nothing  but  self-sacrifice  for  the  good 
of  society  and  of  the  race.  And  logic  tells  the  same  story. 
For  truth  is  also  social;  it  turns  out  now  to  be  nothing 
but  the  opinion  of  the  race  as  against  that  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Along  the  same  line  history,  economics,  and 
sociology  treat  the  individual  as  an  episode  in  a  social 
and  economic  movement,  a  merely  passing  detail  of 
an  essentially  social  process.  Likewise  for  psychology 
mental  development  is  social.  The  individual  is  the 
product  of  society.  Through  heredity  society  provides 
him  with  a  set  of  "social"  instincts  to  begin  with,  and 
then  carefully  guides  the  development  of  these  instincts 
into  a  "socially-formed"  personal  character.  Child- 
psychology,  so-called,  fairly  wallows  in  the  social,  and 
condemns  the  poor  child  to  an  exclusively  social  life.  I 
have  somewhere  seen  a  pedagogical  treatise  in  which  the 
child  rose  in  the  morning,  donned  his  social  vestments, 
ate  a  social  breakfast,  and  went  about  his  social  occupa- 
tions, indulging  later  in  the  day  in  some  social  recreation 
and  some  further  social  refection,  —  after  which,  I 
should  say,  it  remained  only  to  put  on  his  social  night- 
gown and  tuck  him  into  his  social  bed. 

The  term  "social"  has  thus  become  only  a  piece  of 
academic  slang.  Yet  beneath  this  indiscriminateness 
of  usage  there  is  implied  still  an  antithesis  and  con- 
tradiction between  the  social  and  the  individual,  to  the 
disadvantage  of  the  individual.  As  the  social  has  come 


Introduction  5 

to  stand  for  positive  values  the  individual  has  been 
relegated  to  the  negative.  In  logic  the  individual  opinion 
has  become  the  typical  representative  of  error  and 
illusion.  In  history,  and  in  sociology  and  economics, 
the  individual  is  no  longer  an  original  and  real  factor 
but,  as  noted  before,  a  function  of  an  organism;  or  a 
mere  phenomenon,  i.e.,  an  illusorily  personal  appear- 
ance of  really  impersonal  "social  forces";  or  perhaps  not 
even  that,  but  rather,  in  the  evolution  of  the  social 
organism,  the  destructive  force  opposed  to  the  social 
as  constructive.  And  thus  it  has  come  about  that  in 
ethics  "individualism"  is,  with  "egoism,"  a  popular 
synonym  for  selfish  meanness,  —  in  fact  a  generic  term 
for  moral  evil.  "Individualism"  is  the  term  used  to 
describe  the  tendencies  of  the  trusts,  the  stock-jobbers 
and  the  corrupt  politicians,  while  the  honest  citizen,  and 
particularly  the  unfortunate  citizen,  is  supposed  to  be 
"performing  a  social  function." 

§  2.  In  opposition  to  all  this  I  shall  undertake  in 
these  lectures  to  defend  the  cause  of  the  individual. 
And  I  may  therefore  conveniently  begin  by  announcing 
my  thesis,  under  the  following  three  heads: 

First,  I  wish  to  show  that  the  individual  is  the  original 
source  and  constituent  of  all  value;  and  therefore  that 
there  can  be  no  higher  standard  of  obligation  for  you 
or  for  me  than  that  set  by  our  personal  ends  and  ideals. 
In  other  words,  I  shall  preach  the  now  repudiated  doc- 
trines of  rational  egoism,  in  the  Third  Lecture,  and  of 
natural  rights,  in  the  Fourth. 

But  secondly,  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  that  in  a  com- 
munity of  conscious  beings  the  personal  interests  of  the 
several  individuals  are,  so  far,  strictly  coordinate;  so 
that  each  is  necessarily  committed  to  a  consideration  of 
the  ends  of  each  of  the  others.  And  therefore  I  rray 


6  Conception  of  the  Individual 

disclaim  in  advance  any  suggestions  of  anarchy,  either 
moral  or  political. 

Thirdly,  however,  —  you  will  note  that  I  do  not 
assert  this  relation  of  any  individual  in  any  society,  but 
only  of  the  several  individuals  so  far  as  they  are  con- 
scious. Their  coordinateness  of  interest  will  be  shown 
to  be  a  function,  in  the  mathematical  sense,  of  their  self- 
consciousness.  And  this  I  shall  assert  on  the  ground 
of  a  theory  of  the  meaning  and  operations  of  conscious- 
ness, the  development  of  which  will  be  nearly  as  impor- 
tant for  the  purpose  of  these  lectures  as  the  analysis  of 
individualism  itself.  Hence,  the  two  main  topics  are: 
the  significance  of  the  individual  and  the  significance  of 
consciousness. 


The  Two  Individuals 


§  3.  And  so  I  shall  begin  by  asking  you  to  follow  me, 
in  this  First  Lecture,  through  the  analysis,  first  of  two 
more  or  less  abstract  conceptions  of  the  human  individ- 
ual, and  then  of  the  correlative  conceptions  of  society 
and  of  nature.  The  concrete  significance  of  this  analysis 
may  not  be  clearly  evident  before  the  Second  Lecture. 
But  in  the  meantime  if  any  one  should  object  to  begin- 
ning with  abstractions  I  may  defend  myself  by  pointing 
out  that  abstraction  is  involved  in  the  merest  descrip- 
tion. Is  the  color  of  the  lake  today  green  or  blue? 
You  can  never  say  exactly  until  you  have  made  a  more 
or  less  abstract  definition  of  green  and  blue,  perhaps 
not  until  you  have  arbitrarily  located  them  at  certain 
points  on  the  solar  spectrum.  Or,  again,  what  is  the 
size  of  a  given  farm?  or  its  shape?  Here  you  require  a 
distinction  of  length  and  breadth  which,  I  need  not  say, 
are  at  once  the  most  abstract  and  the  most  necessary 
of  all  abstractions.  Now  it  would  be  too  simple  to  say 
that  the  abstract  conceptions  of  the  individual  that  I 
am  about  to  present  are  related  to  each  other  as  length 
and  breadth,  or  as  two  points  on  the  spectrum.  Yet 
they  will  serve  a  similar  purpose,  —  that,  namely,  of 
enabling  us  to  say  wherein  consists  the  individuality 
of  any  concrete  individual. 

The  human  individual  has  two  radically  contrasted 
aspects;  the  external  aspect,  as  he  appears  to  others, 
the  internal  aspect,  as  he  is  for  himself.  You  will  appre- 
ciate the  force  of  this  contrast  if  I  remind  you  that 
inorganic  bodies  have,  at  least  as  conceived  in  our  com- 
mon sense,  but  one  aspect  and  that  the  external.  To 
any  human  being  you  may  put  the  question,  How  does 


8  Conception  of  the  Individual 

it  seem  to  be  a  man  and  to  perform  the  acts  of  a  man? 
Or,  how  does  it  seem  to  be  president,  or  professor,  or 
what  not?  Or,  again,  you  may  turn  to  his  neighbor  and 
ask  how  it  looks  to  be  a  man:  what  is  the  human  indi- 
vidual to  the  external  observer?  But  in  the  case  of 
inorganic  bodies,  the  billiard-ball,  for  instance,  you  will 
ask  only  how  the  object  appears  to  the  observer.  You 
may  indeed  formulate  the  question,  How  would  it  seem 
to  be  a  billiard-ball  and  to  collide  with  other  billiard- 
balls?  And  I  should  hold  that  the  question  is  not 
irrelevant.  But  obviously  you  will  receive  no  satisfac- 
tory answer.  The  internal  aspect  is  one  which,  for  our 
common  sense,  belongs  chiefly  and  almost  exclusively 
to  human  beings. 

§  4.  Our  first  conception,  however,  is  of  the  individual 
in  his  external  aspect.  I  shall  call  him  the  mechanical 
individual.  He  is  the  individual  as  he  appears  in  the 
cold  light  of  scientific  observation,  wholly  divested  of 
any  qualities  which  might  be  attributed  to  him  by  sym- 
pathetic interpretation.  He  is,  in  other  words,  the 
individual  viewed  by  us  as  a  pure  object,  as  something 
over  against  and  before  us,  something  finally  disen- 
tangled from  our  own  point  of  view,  set  up,  if  you  like, 
against  the  opposite  wall,  and  become  quite  independent 
of  any  feelings  he  may  arouse  in  us  as  subjects.  So 
considered,  the  individual  is  a  mechanical  fact,  —  a 
mechanical  object;  and  he  differs  in  no  essential  par- 
ticular from  other  mechanical  objects.  We  may  not 
pause  here  to  consider  in  detail  the  meaning  of  "mechani- 
cal." It  will  be  sufficient  if  we  say  that  our  mechanical 
individual  is  the  human  individual  viewed  as  a  material 
object  in  space  and  time,  whose  movements  are  deter- 
mined by  the  operation  of  force.  Viewed  as  such  he  is 
concerned  only  (so  far  as  he  can  be  " concerned")  with 


The  Two  Individuals  9 

material  goods;  and  his  relations  to  nature  and  to  other 
human  individuals  are  in  last  analysis  those  only  of 
space,  time  and  force.  In  a  word,  then,  the  mechanical 
individual  is  the  human  individual  conceived  as  a  unit 
of  the  same  kind  as  one  of  the  billiard-balls  on  the  table. 
Now  it  may  be  that  in  this  description  you  are  unable 
to  recognize  the  view  that  you  have  of  any  of  your 
neighbors.  You  may  claim,  perhaps,  that,  even  for  the 
external  view,  there  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
between  your  human  neighbor  and  a  billiard-ball. 
And  truly  there  is;  a  difference  in  size,  weight,  con- 
figuration, etc.,  i.e.,  a  mechanical  difference;  but  no 
difference  in  principle.  If  you  should  find  any  other 
difference,  then  I  should  say  that  you  have  not  yet 
arrived  at  the  standpoint  of  the  pure  observer.  You 
are  viewing  your  fellow-man,  not  in  the  cold  light  of 
scientific  observation,  but  in  the  warmer  light  of  sym- 
pathetic interpretation  from  personal  experience.  And 
you  will  be  convinced  of  this  if  you  reflect  that  not  all 
human  actions  have  for  you  the  same  degree  of  sig- 
nificance. Those  of  your  intimate  friend  are  alive  with 
personal  meaning.  But  what  of  your  more  distant 
neighbor?  What,  for  example,  of  the  man  whom  you 
know  chiefly  as  a  unit  in  a  table  of  statistics?  He  is  par 
excellence  the  human  individual  viewed  as  an  object  of 
scientific  observation.  For  you  he  is  as  impersonal  a 
fact  as  the  billiard-ball  itself.  From  Hobbes  to  Spencer, 
all  those  who  have  endeavored  to  take  a  strictly  obser- 
vational view  of  human  life  have  reached  essentially 
this  conception  of  the  individual.  Even  the  form  of  the 
illustration  is  not  accidental.  The  billiard-ball  has 
played  a  conspicuous  part  in  philosophical  and  scientific 
theory.  It  is  without  doubt  the  guiding  image  for  the 
conception  of  the  physical  atom;  and  the  physical  atom 


ib  Conception  of  the  Individual 

and  the  billiard-ball  together  are  responsible  for  much 
of  our  social  philosophy,  of  that  portion  of  it  at  least 
which  antedates  the  appearance  of  the  "social  organism." 
Nay,  you  may  even  find  conceptions  of  social  relations 
which  are  perfectly  true  of  billiard-balls  but  not  at  all 
true  of  men.  But  in  any  case  you  will  easily  see  why 
the  figure  should  be  chosen  for  the  expression  of  the 
mechanical  principle;  for  outside  of  the  physical  labora- 
tory, nowhere  in  the  world  is  the  mechanical  principle 
made  sensuously  self-evident  with  such  beauty  and  pre- 
cision as  on  the  billiard-table. 

§  5.  Our  second  conception  of  the  individual  is  not 
so  readily  formulated.  He  is  of  course  the  individual 
in  his  internal  aspect,  —  the  individual  as  he  seems,  or 
feels,  to  himself,  and  not  as  he  looks,  to  others.  But 
what  this  all  means  can  best  be  seen  by  contrast.  When 
a  billiard-ball  moves  from  its  place  we  attribute  its 
motion  invariably  to  some  external  cause,  to  the  impact 
of  the  cue  or  of  another  ball.  And  in  varying  degree, 
as  just  noted,  we  apply  this  interpretation  to  the  acts 
of  our  fellow-men,  more  especially  as  they  are  in  a  social 
sense  remote  from  ourselves.  The  actions  of  a  unit  of  a 
statistical  table,  though  a  human  unit,  are  for  us  dis- 
tinctly a  matter  of  cause.  But  we  never  consciously, 
certainly  not  willingly,  adopt  the  causal  explanation  for 
our  own  actions,  —  least  of  all  at  the  moment  when 
we  are  acting,  and  when  as  agent  and  originator  of 
the  act  we  are  in  the  heart  and  center  of  the  action 
itself.  We  may  have  some  doubt  about  our  past  acts, 
because,  from  our  present  point  of  view,  they,  like 
the  acts  of  our  fellows,  are  viewed  as  relatively  external 
facts.  Bui:  this  present  conscious  act— this  thing  which 
I  now  deliberately  choose  to  do  —  is  never  the  effect  of  a 
cause,  but  the  expression  of  a  reason. 


The  Two  Individuals  II 

§  6.  In  this  contrast  we  see  the  individual  in  his 
internal  aspect.  As  our  mechanical  individual  was 
defined  and  distinguished  by  his  spatial  dimensions,  so, 
now,  our  conscious  or  spiritual  individual  is  to  be  defined 
by  his  meaning  or  purpose.  For  me  as  a  present  con- 
scious agent,  not  merely  acting  but  acting  knowingly, 
it  is  inconceivable  that  what  I  deliberately  choose  to  do 
should  be  the  blind  outcome  of  mechanical  forces.  I 
may  accept  the  fact  that  I  am  a  physical  being,  and  that 
I  have  a  brain  and  nervous  system,  which  cannot  be 
conceived  to  act  except  from  mechanical  causes.  I  may 
even  see  that  the  external  stimuli  are  such  as  fully  to 
account  for  the  act  which  I  now  choose  to  perform. 
But  all  this  is  irrelevant  to  the  point  of  view  which  I 
occupy  as  a  present  conscious  agent.  Other  men  may 
be  caused  to  act,  if  you  please;  and  I  am  willing  that  you 
should  explain  their  action  as  the  product  of  the  stimulus 
which  is  stronger.  But  I,  knowing  what  I  am  about 
to  do,  cannot  conceive  myself  to  do  otherwise  than 
choose  that  object  which  I  see  to  be  better.  For  me  as  a 
conscious  agent  the  only  conceivable  ground  of  action, 
the  only  conceivably  efficient  motive,  is  an  idea,  —  that 
is  to  say,  a  reason,  a  purpose,  an  end,  a  meaning,  a 
judgment  of  value.  And  of  value,  in  last  analysis,  to 
myself;  for,  as  we  shall  have  reason  to  emphasize  later, 
it  is  not  any  other  man's  meaning  that  can  furnish 
a  conceivable  motive  for  me,  nor  yet  any  abstractly 
"social"  meaning,  but  only  that  which  I  can  conceive 
to  have  a  meaning  for  myself.  And  so,  from  the  inter- 
nal standpoint,  I,  the  conscious  individual,  am  expressed 
in  that  meaning  which  the  world  has  for  me,  and  in  that 
purpose  which  I  seek  to  accomplish  there. 

Now  it  is  possible  that  this  conception  of  the  individ- 
ual, like  the  first  conception,  may  appear  to  have  been 


12  Conception  of  the  Individual 

drawn  too  finely.  Just  as  there  I  may  seem  to  have 
exaggerated  your  attitude  of  observing  your  fellow-men, 
so  now  I  may  seem  to  exaggerate  your  confidence  in 
yourself.  For  myself,  you  may  urge,  I  have  no  certain 
assurance  that,  as  a  self-conscious  being,  I  am  bound 
to  choose  that  which  I  judge  the  better  and  the  more 
reasonable.  I  find  myself  constantly  choosing,  quite 
self-consciously,  it  would  seem,  that  which  I  know  to  be 
worse,  and  at  the  same  time  assenting  to  that  which  I 
know  to  be  absurd;  and  though  to  some  degree  my  ideas 
and  motives  are  ordered  rationally,  yet  for  a  large  part 
they  are  also  at  the  mercy  of  accident  and  chance-associa- 
tion. But  —  my  reply  would  be  —  the  question  just  now 
before  us  is  not  whether,  in  a  moment  when  you  are 
conscious,  you  do  in  fact  perform  an  irrational  act  rather 
than  its  rational  alternative,  but  whether,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  conscious  agent  —  that  agent  at 
that  moment  —  you  can  conceive  this  to  be  possible. 
That  self-conscious  irrationality  is  possible  you  may 
indeed  assert.  I  shall  leave  this  to  be  answered  by  the 
argument  of  the  lectures  as  a  whole.  What  I  now  claim 
is  that  the  assertion  is  impossible  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  conscious  agent  himself.  And  therefore  I  should 
say  that  you  are  not  conceiving  your  action  from  the 
heart  of  the  action  itself.  You  are  viewing  it  perhaps 
as  it  appears  after  the  fact  when  the  numerous  subtle 
and  remote  considerations  which  gave  the  action  its 
warmth,  and  at  the  same  time  its  meaning,  are  now  lost 
to  sight.  If  you  could  get  back  into  the  point  of  view 
of  the  action  itself  (e.g.,  the  point  of  view  of  this  letter 
of  yours  written  twenty  years  ago)  you  would  find  that 
you  were  not  so  great  a  fool  as  you  are  now  disposed 
to  think.  Or  perhaps  you  are  viewing  it  as  you  think 
it  ought  to  be  viewed,  —  from  the  scientific  standpoint 


The  Two  Individuals  13 

of  cold-blooded  observation.  Or  you  may  be  selecting 
as  typical  some  action  which  was  really  not  seriously 
considered.  In  any  case  your  assertion  means  to  me 
that  you  are  not  speaking  of  your  action,  from  the  stand- 
point in  which  it  was  immediately  and  certainly  yours, 
but  of  self-conscious  action  considered  as  a  general  and 
abstract  fact.  From  a  general  and  undefined  stand- 
point it  does  indeed  seem  that  — 

"  Video  meliora  proboque, 
Deteriora  sequor." 

Yet  the  stronger  the  seeming  the  more  mysterious  and 
inexplicable.  How  can  I  choose  the  worse  while  in  view 
of  the  better?  Only  if  the  act  is  determined  by  some 
external  force.  Never  if  it  be  truly  mine.  For  in  last 
analysis  no  act  can  be  truly  mine  whose  meaning  I  do 
not  comprehend  and  in  comprehending  approve  and 
accept  as  my  own. 

§  7.  When  we  compare  the  individuals  of  our  two 
conceptions  it  is  evident  that,  superficially  at  least,  they 
are  by  no  means  coincident.  The  mechanical  individual, 
like  every  mechanical  object,  is,  or  is  supposed  to  be,1 
a  perfectly  determinate  quantity,  a  thing  of  definite 
dimensions.  As  a  spatial  fact  he  is  limited  by  the  sur- 
face of  his  body  and  is  at  the  same  time  coextensive 
with  his  body  as  a  whole.  As  a  dynamic  fact  he  repre- 
sents a  given  quantity  of  potential  energy  disposed  in  a 
given  way.  And  for  a  physicist  and  anatomist  of  super- 
human clearness  of  vision  it  should  conceivably  be  pos- 

1  In  all  this  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  mechanical  conception 
is  by  no  means  a  finality,  never  less  so  than  today.  For  our  purposes 
it  is  unnecessary  to  carry  the  definition  to  the  bitter  end  —  there  may 
be  no  end  —  but  only  far  enough  to  bring  out  the  meaning  of  the  con- 
trast of  mechanical  and  conscious  for  our  thought  of  today. 


14  Conception  of  the  Individual 

sible  to  state  with  mathematical  precision  the  manner 
and  extent  of  the  influence  which  our  individual  may 
bring  to  bear  upon  his  physical  environment  and  upon  his 
fellow-men.  But  with  the  spiritual  individual  it  is  quite 
otherwise.  Even  for  our  empirical  psychology  it  seems 
that  our  bodies  are  not  coextensive  with  ourselves. 
Any  tool  or  instrument  that  we  are  able  to  control  be- 
comes so  far  a  part  of  ourselves.  The  blind  man  comes 
into  contact  with  the  world,  not  where  his  hand  grasps 
his  stick,  but  where  the  stick  touches  the  ground.  On 
the  other  hand,  any  part  of  my  body  which  is  beyond 
my  control  becomes  so  far  external  and  perhaps  hostile 
to  myself.  And  therefore,  although  for  me,  even  as  a 
spiritual  individual,  the  body  furnishes  the  center  from 
which,  and  the  instrument  through  which,  I  undertake 
to  realize  my  ends  in  the  world,  yet  7,  the  individual, 
am  not  coextensive  with  the  mass  of  my  body  nor  are  all 
the  bodily  actions  my  actions.  As  a  spiritual  individual 
I  am  found  in  every  action  that  expresses  my  meaning, 
whether  it  be  that  of  my  hand,  my  type-writer,  my  ser- 
vant, or  my  political  party;  and  any  object  that  refuses 
to  express  my  meaning,  though  it  be  a  member  of  my 
own  body,  is  so  far  not  truly  myself.  Accordingly, 
where  the  mechanical  individual  is  a  thing  of  definite 
and  limited  extent,  the  spiritual  individual  is,  in  the 
mechanical  sense,  wholly  indeterminate.  Fully  self- 
conscious,  he  will  be  as  broad  as  the  universe  itself. 
For  there  is  no  fact  in  heaven  or  earth  which,  in  last 
analysis,  is  irrelevant  to  his  purposes.  And  yet,  in  his 
own  spiritual  sense,  in  the  degree  to  which  he  is  self- 
conscious,  he  is  also  perfectly  determinate.  For  in  the 
end  his  interest  in  the  world  about  him  is  not  an  abstract 
world-interest  but  a  concrete,  individual  interest  peculiar 
to  himself. 


The  Two  Individuals  15 

And  as  we  shall  now  see,  this  contrast  in  the  mode  of 
distinguishing  the  human  individual  is  a  matter  of  far- 
reaching  significance.  For  the  story  of  the  individual 
is  only  begun  with  the  individual  himself.  The  nature 
of  the  individual  must  be  correlative  to  that  of  the  world 
in  which  he  lives.  Our  two  abstract  conceptions  repre- 
sent the  conceptions  of  the  individual  presupposed, 
respectively,  in  the  idealistic  and  materialistic  theories 
of  social  relations;  and  these  at  their  extreme  may  be 
conceived  as  the  opposite  poles  of  social  philosophy, 
between  which  lie  every  concrete  conception  of  the 
individual  and  the  social  order.  But,  as  noted  before, 
it  is  by  analysis  of  the  abstract  that  we  are  enabled  to 
estimate  the  concrete.  From  the  abstract  conceptions 
of  the  individual  we  turn,  then,  to  the  corresponding 
conceptions  of  the  social  order. 


16  Conception  of  the  Individual 


III  THE  MECHANICAL  SOCIAL  ORDER 

Our  problem  is :  given  a  group  of  individuals  of  a  given 
kind,  what  relations  will  they  bear  to  each  other,  and 
what  will  be  the  possibilities  of  social  order? 

§  8.  We  begin  with  the  mechanical  group.  Here  we 
are  guided  by  the  consideration  that  for  the  mechanical 
view  the  individual  is  a  perfectly  definite  quantity.  As 
such  he  is  an  object  of  definite  dimensions  and,  in  last 
analysis,  of  spatial  dimensions.  Now  the  characteristic 
peculiarity  of  the  spatial  individual  is  that  he  is,  so  to 
speak,  contained  wholly  within  his  own  skin.  His  being 
cannot  overlap  or  interpenetrate  that  of  any  other. 
Two  such  individuals  are  therefore  in  an  absolute  sense 
mutually  exclusive,  and  if  it  were  otherwise  they  would 
no  longer  be  individuals.  For  the  very  principle  of 
individuation  which  defines  each  as  himself  demands 
that  each  shall  be  wholly  within  himself  and  outside  of 
the  other.  Human  individuals,  like  individual  billiard- 
balls,  are  two  if  they  occupy  different  portions  of  space; 
as  contained  within  the  same  space  they  are  only  one. 

§  9.  But  the  significance  for  human  life  of  this  abstract 
principle  of  individuation  lies  in  the  consideration  that 
the  human  individual,  regarded  as  a  spatial  and  mechani- 
cal fact,  is  a  consumer  of  material  goods.  He  also  lives 
in  a  world  where  the  sum  of  goods,  like  the  extension 
of  his  own  being,  is  a  definitely  fixed  quantity;  of  this 
I  shall  speak  later.  Hence,  the  general  fact  with  regard 
to  such  consumption  is  this:  the  more  for  you,  the  less 
for  me.  Just  as  your  occupation  of  a  given  portion  of 
space  prevents  me  from  occupying  the  same  space  (at 
the  same  time),  so  does  your  consumption  of  goods 
diminish  the  quantity  that  may  be  consumed  by  me. 


The  Mechanical  Social  Order  17 

Nor  does  this  apply  only  to  goods  in  the  rawest  mate- 
rial sense.  It  holds  true  in  some  sense  for  every 
form  of  material  property  whether  it  be  a  coat,  a 
house,  a  horse,  or  a  seat  at  the  opera,  —  for  every- 
thing, that  is  to  say,  that  can  be  put  on  the  market  and 
sold,  and  for  many  things  that  are  not  bought  and  sold. 
In  all  matters  relating  to  the  enjoyment  of  material 
goods  your  use  and  possession  is  in  some  way  an  inter- 
ference with  mine.  From  two  persons  in  the  same  bed 
to  two  persons  on  the  same  planet,  each,  regarded  as  a 
purely  mechanical  fact,  is  a  possible  source  of  limitation 
for  the  other. 

§  10.  Accordingly,  in  a  formulation  of  social  relations 
from  a  mechanical  standpoint,  we  reach  the  result  that 
the  several  individuals  are  mutually  exclusive  and  their 
interests  necessarily  conflicting.  And  in  this  standpoint, 
as  we  may  now  see,  lies  the  origin  and  source  of  that 
familiar  assumption  to  the  effect  that  the  interests  of 
men  are  naturally  at  variance;  and  therefore  that  com- 
petition (conceived  here  as  essentially  destructive)  is  the 
soul  of  life.  This  assumption  was  long  ago  expressed 
by  Hobbes  in  the  statement  that  the  natural  state  of 
man  is  a  state  of  warfare,  and  more  recently  by  Herbert 
Spencer  in  his  application  to  social  relations  of  the 
principle  of  the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  and  also  in  his  earlier  conception  of  society 
as  an  aggregate  of  atoms  and  atomic  forces.  In  our 
thought  of  today  the  assumption  is  applied  more  par- 
ticularly to  economic  and  commercial  relations,  —  where, 
indeed,  it  is  to  a  certain  extent  clearly  justified.  If  you 
take  that  most  purely  commercial  of  commercial  situa- 
tions, namely,  the  stock-market,  it  is  evident  that,  there 
at  least,  every  fluctuation  of  price  which  brings  gain  to 
one  brings  a  corresponding  loss  to  another.  The  assump- 


1 8  Conception  of  the  Individual 

tion  of  a  fundamental  conflict  of  individual  interests 
presupposes,  then,  a  mechanical  view  of  the  individual 
and  of  his  social  relations.  You  may  ask,  indeed,  how 
a  purely  mechanical  individual  could  be  assumed  to 
have  any  "interests"  whatever,  and  your  question 
would  be  relevant  as  touching  the  ultimate  consistency 
and  justification  of  the  mechanical  view.  But  just  at 
present  our  purpose  is  to  note  that,  if  we  endow  our 
individuals  with  interests,  while  treating  them  other- 
wise as  purely  mechanical  facts  —  which  is  a  very 
popular  custom  in  social  philosophy  —  we  must,  with 
all  materialistic  views  of  social  relations,  regard  these 
interests  as  necessarily  conflicting.  From  this  point  of 
view  each  human  individual,  like  each  billiard-ball,  is  a 
source  of  restriction  for  each  other. 

§  ii.  You  may  claim,  however,  that  I  have  failed 
once  more  to  take  account  of  the  actual  mechanical 
differences  between  men  and  billiard-balls.  The  billiard- 
ball,  you  may  say,  is  a  relatively  simple  mass  which 
is  capable  only  of  going  where  it  is  sent,  while  the  man, 
regarded  even  as  a  mechanism,  is  a  highly  complex 
organization  which  is  capable  of  adjusting  its  actions 
to  those  of  others;  for  him,  therefore,  a  collision  of 
interests  is  more  or  less  avoidable.  Here,  however,  my 
reply  would  be,  you  have  assumed,  in  your  human 
mechanism,  a  guiding  intelligence  and  purpose.  If  you 
apply  the  same  intelligence  to  the  billiard-balls  you  may 
secure  a  similar  result.  For  I  suppose  that  a  skilled 
mathematician  could  readily  devise  a  system  of  paths 
whereby  three,  or  perhaps  a  score  of  billiard-balls  could 
roll  forever  over  the  same  table  without  coming  into 
collision.  But  apart  from  the  guiding  intelligence,  your 
human  mechanisms  are  as  little  capable  of  adjustment 
as  your  billiard-balls.  It  is  true  that  some  mechanisms 


The  Mechanical  Social  Order  19 

are  more  adjustable  than  others,  —  at  the  hands  of  an 
intelligent  director.  Left  to  themselves,  however,  two 
automobiles  are  as  little  likely  to  avoid  collision  as  two 
billiard-balls.  Assuming  a  level  road,  all  depends  upon 
the  initial  direction.  And  therein  lies  the  gist  of  the 
whole  matter.  When  you  assert  that  the  human  indi- 
vidual, regarded  as  a  complex  mechanism,  is  capable 
of  self-adjustment,  you  overlook  the  consideration  that 
as  a  mechanical  fact  he  is  a  fatally  determined  quantity. 
As  a  dynamic  fact  —  as  a  set  of  potential  energies  — 
he  is  in  position,  no  doubt,  to  be  turned  in  any  one  of 
many  directions,  if  there  be  an  intelligent  purpose  to 
choose  the  direction  he  is  to  take.  Apart  from  this  pur- 
pose he  is,  like  the  automobile  at  any  point  in  its  career, 
headed  in  just  one  direction.  And  this  initial  direction, 
together  with  the  mechanical  conditions  of  the  path 
which  it  marks,  determines  unequivocally,  for  him  as  for 
the  billiard-ball,  the  course  he  is  to  take. 

§  12.  Here  it  is  worth  noting  that  this  conception  of 
the  individual,  as  a  definitely  fixed  fact  whose  actions 
are  mechanically  determined,  is  just  the  conception  pre- 
supposed in  all  the  so-called  "laws"  of  human  behavior, 
-that  is  to  say,  in  all  attempts  to  formulate  human 
relations  from  the  cold-blooded,  scientific  point  of  view. 
Such  attempts  have  characterized  more  particularly  the 
science  of  economics,  quite  appropriately,  no  doubt, 
though  Carlyle,  from  his  own  hot-blooded  point  of  view, 
was  equally  appropriate  in  calling  it  the  "dismal  science." 
The  classical  economics  was  a  compendium  of  such 
impersonal  "laws,"  which  were  assumed  to  govern 
economic  relations  in  the  same  absolute  fashion  as  the 
laws  of  physics  and  chemistry  govern  the  distribution 
of  matter.  In  economics  or  in  physics,  however,  the 
presupposition  of  law  is  a  perfectly  determinate  individ- 


2O  Conception  of  the  Individual 

ual.  For  example,  the  law  of  supply  and  demand :  if  the 
individual  could  do  anything  he  pleased  with  anything 
that  were  offered  him  the  demand  would  cease  to  be  a 
determinant  of  price.  Again,  the  law  of  diminishing 
returns  presupposes  a  fixed  maximum  capacity  of  human 
intelligence  and  skill.  Aside  from  this  it  could  never 
be  predicted  whether  returns  would  diminish  or  increase. 
The  very  conception  of  law  as  universal  and  invariable 
excludes  the  possibility  of  any  readjustment  of  behavior, 
except  as  such  readjustment  is  already  specifically  pro- 
vided for  in  the  original  constitution  of  the  individual. 
Hence  the  popular  conception  —  absurd  but  logically 
correct — that  the  "economic  laws"  would  continue  to 
direct  our  action  in  the  face  of  a  unanimous  decision 
to  act  contrariwise. 

§  13.  It  may  seem,  then,  that  we  have  closed  the  path 
to  our  next  question.  For  what  we  have  now  to  ask  is, 
What  sort  of  social  order  is  possible  for  these  mutually 
exclusive  and  hostile  individuals?  But  if  the  individ- 
uals are  inadjustable  it  would  seem  that  no  order  is 
possible  but  that  which  is  already  determined.  Never- 
theless you  may  have  remarked  that  those  who  hold 
that  individual  interests  are  necessarily  in  conflict,  and 
that  social  relations  are  strictly  determined,  are  apt  to 
be  none  the  less  interested  in  social  reform.  And,  as 
noted  before,  our  present  purpose  is  less  to  study  the 
pure  logic  of  the  mechanical  view  than  to  see  how  this 
logic  operates,  in  a  manner  not  strictly  logical,  to  shape 
our  actual  human  thought.  Now  if  you  will  study  the 
attitude  in  which  social  questions  are  very  commonly 
approached  you  will  find  the  student  of  society  regarding 
his  fellow-men  as  a  group  of  objects  external  to  him- 
self which  are  governed  by  laws  that  he  could  not  con- 
ceive himself  to  obey.  He  views  them  as  we  view  the 


The  Mechanical  Social  Order  11 

billiard-balls  on  the  table  or  the  chessman  on  the  board, 
as  so  many  determinate  objects,  having  strictly  limited 
possibilities  of  order  and  arrangement,  within  which  their 
relations  may  be  guided  and  controlled,  not  perhaps 
from  within  but  certainly  from  without.  For  them, 
indeed,  no  social  order  may  be  possible  but  that  which 
is  already  determined.  But  for  him,  the  student  of 
society  and  its  would-be  reformer,  the  problem  of  the 
best  possible  arrangement  is  practical  and  significant. 
And  so,  taking  some  such  attitude  as  this,  we  may  ask 
what  kind  of  social  order  can  be  constructed  of  individ- 
uals whose  interests  are  essentially  hostile. 

§  14.  In  general  terms  the  answer  is  very  simple. 
It  is  evident,  to  begin  with,  that  no  arrangement  is 
possible  by  which  all  interests  can  be  completely  satis- 
fied. Nor,  indeed,  if  we  keep  the  terms  of  our  problem 
strictly  in  mind,  can  we  conceive  the  satisfaction  of  any 
one  to  be  increased  by  the  presence  of  others  in  his  world. 
For  if  the  social  units  are  non-interpenetrable,  like  the 
physical  atoms,  it  follows  that  each  by  his  mere  pres- 
ence in  the  world  reduces  the  possibilities  of  satisfac- 
tion of  each  other.  Or,  again,  if  each  is  a  consumer  of 
material  goods,  of  which  there  is  but  a  limited  supply, 
and  if  the  goods  consumed  by  one  cannot  also  be  con- 
sumed by  another,  it  follows  that  each  by  his  presence 
in  the  world  reduces  for  every  other  the  source  of  supply. : 
Accordingly,  by  the  terms  of  our  problem,  there  can  be 
no  complete  or  real  harmony  of  individual  interests,  no 
social  unity  resting  upon  universally  complete  individual 
satisfaction,  but  at  best  only  a  compromise  of  claims 
based  upon  mutual  sacrifice. 

If,  now,  we  investigate  the  terms  of  the  compromise, 
we  find  our  answer  once  more  in  the  logic  of  the  mechani- 
cal view.  According  to  this  view  the  social  order  is  at 


22  Conception  of  the  Individual 

any  moment  a  composition  of  forces,  in  which  the  dis- 
tribution of  goods,  of  power  and  of  influence  is  being 
determined  according  to  the  relative  initial  energy  of 
the  individual  components.  Like  the  several  balls  on 
the  billiard-table  or  the  several  pieces  on  the  chess- 
board, the  individuals  in  human  society  enter  the  contest 
each  with  a  specific  initial  energy  and  a  specific  advan- 
tage or  disadvantage  of  position  and  constitution.  These 
initial  differences  constitute  for  the  social  reformer  the 
unalterable  terms  of  his  problem.  Ultimately,  indeed, 
they  must,  even  if  left  to  themselves,  reach  a  position 
of  final  equilibrium.  In  the  meantime,  however,  it 
appears  possible,  through  a  careful  study  of  the  condi- 
tions, to  accelerate  the  process  and  to  diminish  the  waste 
and  the  struggle  by  which,  to  some  degree,  the  crude 
mechanical  adjustment  is  inevitably  attended.  That  is 
to  say,  it  appears  possible  for  him,  the  social  reformer. 
What  he  seeks,  then,  is  a  basis  of  permanent  equilibrium, 
—  such  an  ordering  of  individuals  and  such  a  distribu- 
tion of  goods  that  each  may  have,  by  no  means  all  that 
he  demands,  but  all  that,  in  view  of  the  presence  of 
other  individuals  in  his  world,  he  can  possibly  expect 
to  hold. 

§  15.  The  mechanical  society  is  thus  an  equilibrium 
of  forces.  It  represents  a  situation  in  which  each  individ- 
ual holds  the  place  that  properly  belongs  to  him  by  virtue 
of  his  individual  power;  and  by  the  terms  of  the  mechani- 
cal view  this  is  the  only  situation  in  which  we  may 
expect  to  find  a  stable  organization  of  society.  Even 
so,  however,  it  may  appear  possible  to  determine  the 
exact  nature  of  this  equilibrium  by  various  combina- 
tions of  the  component  forces.  And  at  any  rate,  among 
the  social  reformers  who  adopt  an  essentially  mechani- 
cal point  of  view  we  find  advocates  both  of  individual- 


The  Mechanical  Social  Order  23 

ism  and  of  socialism.  Individualism  will  then  be  the 
doctrine  that  the  individual  members  of  society  should 
be  left  free  to  exercise  their  powers  of  acquisition  with- 
out interference  from  organized  combinations.  Social- 
ism, on  the  other  hand,  advocates  the  control  of  the 
(presumably)  stronger  members  by  combinations  of  the 
weaker.  It  is  a  question,  indeed,  whether,  in  view  of 
the  natural  gravitation  of  the  stronger  members  of  the 
weaker  party  toward  the  party  of  the  stronger,  the  final 
situation  would  not,  if  conceived  on  a  strictly  mechani- 
cal basis,  be  the  same  for  both  cases.  But  this  need  not 
concern  us  here.2 

For  our  present  purpose  is  to  see  how  the  mechani- 
cal conception  of  the  individual  is  responsible,  in  one 
quarter,  for  the  assumption  that  society  is  necessarily 
a  struggle  of  hostile  forces,  and  in  another  quarter  for 
that  interpretation  of  individualism  which  makes  the 
term  synonymous  with  a  mean  and  narrow  selfishness. 
Defining  the  individual  from  the  mechanical  standpoint 
you  will  say  that  the  typical  expressions  of  his  individ- 
uality are  his  occupation  of  space  and  his  consumption  _f 
which  is  also  destruction,  of  material  goods,  —  in  both  ,' 
of  which  characteristics  he  is  exclusive  and  unsocial. 
And  when  you  have  set  up  these  characteristics  as  typi- 
cal you  will  have  no  difficulty  in  discovering  that  every 
assertion  of  individuality  involves  an  invidious  dis- 
tinction. For  in  some  sense  every  social  relation  in-* 
volves  a  certain  mechanical  exclusion,  and  every  sort 
of  individual  property,  from  the  coat  on  your  back  to 
your  right  to  a  personal  opinion,  involves  some  exclu- 
sive control  of  conditions,  which  may  be  conceived  to 
limit  the  opportunities  of  your  neighbor.  Keeping  these 

2  A  further  elaboration  of  the  mechanical  social  order  will  be  found 
in  Chapter  V  of  my  Introductory  Study  of  Ethics  (N.  Y.,  1903). 


24  Conception  of  the  Individual 

mechanical  conditions  in  mind,  and  forgetting  the  pos- 
sibilities of  adjustment,  one  may  readily  reach  the  con- 
clusion that  liberty  for  you  necessarily  imposes  a  certain 
restraint  upon  me;  that  distinction  for  you  involves  me 
in  a  corresponding  obscurity;  or  for  that  matter  that 
any  respect  for  your  tastes  or  opinions  must  demand 
a  qualified  assertion  of  my  own.  In  a  word,  every 
expansion  of  your  personality  will  be  conceived  to 
involve  a  contraction  of  my  own;  so  that  in  all  the 
relations  of  life  the  individual  interest  is  hostile  to  the 
common  good,  and  the  common  good  can  be  purchased 
only  by  individual  sacrifice. 


The  Idealistic  Social  Order  25 


IV  THE  IDEALISTIC  SOCIAL  ORDER 

So  much  for  the  materialistic  conception  of  social 
relations.  We  have  considered  the  relations  of  mechani- 
cal individuals  taken  as  a  group.  Turning  now  to  the 
opposite,  or  idealistic  theory,  we  must  note  that  a  society 
of  conscious  individuals  cannot  appropriately  be  regarded 
as  a  mere  group.  But  for  the  present  we  may  conve- 
niently treat  them  as  such,  and  our  question  will  there- 
fore be :  what  kind  of  relations  are  set  up  when  conscious 
individuals  are  conceived  to  come  together? 

§  1 6.  Now,  just  as  all  materialistic  theories  of  social 
relations  have  affirmed,  or  tended  to  affirm,  that  the 
nature  of  men  is  such  that  individual  interests  are  essen- 
tially hostile,  so  have  idealistic  theories  taught  that  the 
interests  of  individuals  are  essentially  and  by  nature 
harmonious.  The  text  for  all  theories  of  this  kind  is  the 
familiar  statement  of  Aristotle  that  "man  is  by  nature 
a  political  animal."  That  is  to  say,  his  structure,  physi- 
cal and  mental,  is  such  that  his  good  is  to  be  found  only 
in  harmonious  relations  with  his  fellow-men.  Modern 
sociologists  of  the  idealistic  type  base  the  need  of  such 
a  harmony,  somewhat  more  opaquely,  upon  a  "con- 
sciousness of  kind";  or,  borrowing  the  language  of  bio- 
logical evolution,  they  declare  that  the  individual  is  by 
nature  a  "function"  of  the  "social  organism."  Not 
merely  is  he  fitted  for  social  relations;  he  is  really  only 
a  fragment  —  a  passing  molecular  detail  —  of  a  larger 
organic  body,  of  which  he  is  at  the  same  time  the  heredi- 
tary product.  As  such  he  enters  the  world  with  in- 
stincts formed  already  in  accordance  with  social  needs, 
and  his  good  can  therefore  consist  only  in  the  perform- 
ance of  his  "social  function," 


26  Conception  of  the  Individual 

All  this  is  very  well.  But  to  denominate  society  as 
an  organism  and  the  individual  as  a  political  and  social 
animal  is  by  no  means  to  make  it  clear  how  and  why  the 
interests  of  individuals  are  essentially  harmonious.  And 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  emphasis  placed  at  present  upon 
the  essential  unity  of  society  is  apt  to  leave  one  with 
the  impression  that  the  harmony  of  individual  interests 
is  somehow  miraculously  preestablished.  For  example, 
Professor  Dewey  goes  so  far  as  to  argue  that  unless  the 
individual  has  an  instinctive  and  inherent  (i.e.,  heredi- 
tary) interest  in  the  well-being  of  others,  he  never  can 
be  brought  to  make  it  an  object  of  genuine  considera- 
tion, and  any  coordination  of  interests  will  then  be 
forever  "artificial"  and  ineffective.  Yet,  assuming  the 
hereditary  basis,  assuming  that  the  individual  is  the 
hereditary  product  of  society  (which,  of  course,  I  decline 
to  assume  3),  it  by  no  means  follows  that  his  needs  and 
his  instincts  are  in  harmony  with  those  of  his  fellows. 
Is  it  not,  indeed,  a  common  complaint  of  parents  that 
their  children  prefer  to  have  their  own  way?  And  in  our 
human  family  as  a  whole  shall  we  not  say  that  strife  and 
discord  are  at  least  as  conspicuous  as  harmony  and 
cooperation?  If  we  are  to  show  that,  in  spite  of  all  this, 
the  interests  of  individuals  are  still  "essentially"  in 
harmony,  then  it  is  for  us  to  point  out  that  "essential" 
attribute  of  the  individual  —  and  of  the  individual  him- 
self —  from  which  this  harmony  may  be  derived  and  to 
justify  the  derivation.  To  define  this  attribute,  and  to 
make  the  derivation  clear,  is  one  of  the  main  objects  of 
these  lectures.  In  this  First  Lecture,  however,  I  shall 
offer  only  a  general  and  preliminary  analysis,  less  in  the 
interest  of  concrete  fact  than  of  the  logic  of  the  idealistic 
theory.  My  point  will  be,  then,  that  just  as  a  conflict 
8  See  §§  90,  131. 


The  Idealistic  Social  Order  27 

Iwi 
of  interests  results  from  investing  the  individual  with 

the  mechanical  attribute,  so  must  a  harmony  of  inter- 
ests follow  from  the  assumption  that  the  individual  is  a 
conscious  agent. 

§  17.  First,  however,  to  remove  any  confusion  re- 
garding the  purpose  of  our  argument,  let  me  remind 
you  once  more  that  the  meaning  which  defines  our  con- 
scious individual,  must  be  in  last  analysis  his  own  mean- 
ing and  no  one's  else.  If  this  point  be  obscured  the  whole 
object  of  the  argument  is  lost.  The  conscious  individual1 
is  one  who  knows  what  he  is  doing.  For  one  who  acts 
knowingly  the  only  conceivable  motive  to  action  is  a 
reason,  a  purpose,  a  conception  of  value.  But,  just  on 
this  account,  no  motive  is  conceivable  save  that  which 
in  last  analysis  offers  a  value  for  himself.  The  ends  of 
others  may  be  represented,  indeed,  in  his  own  and 
logically  implied  therein;  for  conscious  beings,  as  we 
shall  see,  this  must  necessarily  be  true;  but  only  as  thus 
represented  can  they  be  ends  for  him.  No  individual 

can,  therefore,  with  a  clear  consciousness  of  what  he  is/ 

7 

choosing,  consent  to  be  eternally  damned,  —  either  for 
the  glory  of  God,  as  the  older  gospel  put  it,  or  for  the. 
glory  of  society,  as  it  stands  in  the  gospel  of  today.  If 
the  glory  of  God  is  not  also  my  glory  and  the  salvation 
of  society  is  not  also  my  salvation,  then  God  and  society 
are  necessarily  strangers  to  me,  and  their  good  can  be 
for  me  neither  a  moral  obligation  nor  a  psychologically 
conceivable  motive. 

But  now,  with  this  in  mind,  we  are  to  see  that  the 
interests  of  different  conscious  individuals,  just  because 
they  are  conscious,   are  essentially  in    harmony.    To 
begin  with  a  negative  and  rather  abstract  consideration^ 
it  is  clear  that  in  the  attribute  of  consciousness  itself  ] 
there  are  no  necessary  implications  of  conflict.     It  is 


28  Conception  of  the  Individual 

otherwise  with  the  mechanical  attribute.  Two  mechani- 
cal individuals  cannot  occupy  the  same  space,  nor 
consume,  nor,  in  the  mechanical  sense,  even  possess, 
the  same  goods;  assuming  a  scarcity  of  goods,  conflict 
necessarily  follows.  But  two  conscious  facts  —  two 
ideas,  if  you  please  —  are  not  in  the  spatial  sense  two. 
Distinct  they  must  certainly  be.  But  their  distinctness 
is  not  a  matter  of  mutual  isolation;  but  rather  a  matter 
of  mutual  inclusion  and  comparison.  For  the  world  of 
ideas,  as  we  shall  see,  individuality  of  meaning  requires 
that  each  shall  know  the  other,  and  at  the  same  time 
know  the  other  as  distinct  from  itself.  But  since  this 
distinction  involves  no  spatial  exclusiveness  there  are 
no  necessary  conditions  of  conflict;  for  conflict,  inter- 
ference, mutual  repression,  —  these  will  be  found,  when 
the  grounds  are  made  clear  and  the  issue  is  brought  to  a 
point,  to  refer  always  to  the  exclusive  possession  of  a 
given  object  in  space,  or  the  occupation  of  a  given  portion 
of  space,  —  in  the  same  place  at  the  same  time. 

If  these  considerations  seem  too  abstract,  let  us  take 
a  concrete  case.  Take  the  love  of  two  parents  for  their 
child.  You  have  probably  known  cases  where  even 
parental  affection  was  a  narrowly  selfish  affair.  I  pass 
by  for  the  present  the  consideration  that  such  affection 
is  mostly  of  the  character  of  a  blind  animal  impulse,  that 
it  has  little  of  the  character  of  an  intelligent  meaning. 
What  interests  us  here  is  that,  in  some  form,  it  aims 
always  at  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  child,  —  his 
exclusive  companionship,  or  service,  or  attention;  and 
of  course  he  cannot  exclusively  serve  both  parents  at 
the  same  time.  Yet  from  this  it  by  no  means  follows 
that,  in  another  case,  very  distinctly  individualistic 
meanings  of  both  parents  may  not  be  fully  realized  in 
the  child.  The  moral  ideals  of  the  two  parents  may  be 


The  Idealistic  Social  Order  29 

totally  different.  The  mother  may  above  all  things 
desire  her  grown  son  to  be  the  object  of  general  admira- 
tion, respect  and  good  will;  the  father  may  be  interested 
chiefly  and  exclusively  in  the  development  of  capacity 
in  his  business  or  profession;  yet  it  is  easily  conceivable 
that  both  may  be  abundantly  satisfied, — not  at  different 
times  and  in  different  places,  but  concordantly,  at  all 
times  and  in  every  act.  And  it  is  further  conceivable 
that  in  his  personal  relations  to  his  very  different  parents 
he  may  with  perfect  sincerity  be  at  all  times  a  joy  to 
both.  Let  us  take  another  illustration,  this  time  from 
the  field  of  commerce.  I  suppose  that  no  one  would 
deny  that  under  present  conditions  the  interests  of  dif- 
ferent individuals  in  the  commercial  world  are  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  more  or  less  hostile.  When  you  buy 
meat  of  the  butcher  his  interest  is  represented  in  the 
highest  price  and  yours  in  the  lowest.  Yet  your  individ- 
ual meanings  are  not  wholly  at  variance.  For,  apart 
from  other  things,  it  is  clear  that  he  wants  your  money 
and  you  want  his  beef.  So  far,  then,  the  aims  of  both 
are  realized  in  the  single  transaction  of  purchase  and 
sale.  And  realized,  let  us  note,  not  in  spite  of  their 
difference,  but  because  of  it;  for  if  both  aims  were  alike 
neither  would  be  benefited  in  the  slightest  degree  by 
the  presence  of  the  other  in  his  world.  This,  then,  is 
my  first  point :  in  the  world  of  mechanical  fact  all  individ- 
ual differences  are  mutually  hostile,  and  each  individual 
body  can  only  displace  another,  but  in  the  world  of 
conscious  meaning  any  number  of  individual  meanings 
may  conceivably  all  be  satisfied,  if  properly  adjusted, 
in  one  act  performed  at  one  time  and  at  one  place. 
In  other  words,  meanings  may  overlie  and  interpenetrate 
each  other,  but  possessions  never. 
§  1 8.  In  this  suggestion  of  adjustment  we  arrive  at 


30  Conception  of  the  Individual 

the  next  point,  which  is  also  the  central  point.  The 
illustrations  just  given  have  assumed,  of  course,  a  cer- 
tain preliminary  basis  of  mutual  fitness  —  a  preestab- 
lished  harmony,  if  you  please  —  in  the  interests  to  be 
harmonized.  The  question  now  arises,  What  of  those 
more  numerous  other  cases  where,  apparently  at  least, 
no  issue  is  possible  which  will  not  involve  a  certain 
failure  of  fulfilment  on  one  side  or  the  other,  or  on  both? 
Such  cases  are  too  familiar  to  require  present  illustra- 
tion. Must  we  not  admit,  then,  that  life  is  for  the  most 
part  made  up  of  situations  where,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  the  incompatibility  of  individual  aims  is  final  and 
definitive,  and  where  no  perfect  or  complete  harmony 
of  interests  is,  humanly  speaking,  possible?  To  one 
making  this  objection  I  should  reply,  "Humanly  speak- 
ing," yes.  And  the  aim  of  all  the  later  lectures  will  be 
to  define  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  qualifications 
which  this  phrase  implies.  But  at  present  my  answer 
must  be,  Logically  speaking,  no.  If  you  are  speaking 
of  the  aims  of  self-conscious  beings,  then,  by  all  the 
logic  of  consciousness,  however  hopelessly  incompatible 
they  may  appear  to  be,  they  may  and  must  still  be 
regarded  as  essentially  in  harmony.  And  because,  as 
we  shall  now  see,  it  is  implied  in  the  very  idea  of  a  con- 
scious being,  as  something  without  which  he  cannot  be 
conceived  to  be  conscious,  that,  just  in  so  far  as  he  is 
conscious  and  knows  what  he  is  doing,  his  activity  is 
adjustable  to  that  situation  in  which  he  finds  himself, 
so  as  to  realize  his  purposes  then  and  there  without 
deviation  from  their  special  individual  meaning.  Here 
we  may  see  why  it  was  so  necessary  to  make  it  clear 
that  self-adjustment  could  not  be  asserted  of  any  purely 
mechanical  structure.  For  self-adjustment  presupposes 
as  its  necessary  condition  the  presence  of  consciousness, 


The  Idealistic  Social  Order  31 

ta 

while  on  the  other  hand  the  very  essence  of  conscious- 
ness is  its  power  of  adjustment.  , 

§  19.  To  make  the  conceptual  relation  clear  let  us 
take  a  simple  and  very  crude  illustration.  Think,  for 
example,  of  a  runaway  locomotive.  Information  has 
been  telegraphed  along  the  line  and  half  a  mile  ahead  a 
switch  has  been  opened,  by  means  of  which  the  loco- 
motive will  be  ditched  and  wrecked.  Now  why  does 
the  locomotive  persist  in  its  path  toward  inevitable 
destruction?  A  physicist  will  tell  you,  quite  correctly, 
that  its  action  is  the  mathematical  resultant  of  certain 
forces  acting  in  certain  directions.  A  very  naive  and 
unscientific  mind  might  hazard  the  explanation  that  "it 
doesn't  know  any  better."  My  point  would  be  that 
the  two  explanations  are  concordant  and  both  are  con- 
cordantly  right;  and  I  should  hold  that  the  second 
explanation  is  for  its  purpose,  and  for  our  present  pur- 
pose, as  significant  as  the  first.  For  what  is  always  to 
be  remembered,  and  what  is  nearly  always  forgotten,  is 
that  when  we  explain  any  action,  be  it  that  of  a  man  or  a 
machine,  as  the  resultant  of  mechanical  forces,  we  at 
the  same  time  imply  that  it  is  not  teleological,  not  pur- 
posive, not  conscious.  If  this  implication  is  not  present 
the  term  "mechanical"  has  lost  its  meaning.  The 
physical  scientist  deals  chiefly  with  a  world  of  objects 
to  which  consciousness  is  never  attributed.  He  is  apt 
to  forget  that  unconsciousness  is  a  factor  in  his  prob- 
lem, just  because  this  unconsciousness  is  so  universally 
assumed.  And  thus  he  arrives  easily  at  the  position 
that  the  mechanical  forces  would  work  out  their  inevi- 
table result  even  if  the  object  were  conscious.  Let  him, 
however,  thoughtfully  face  the  meaning  of  his  position; 
let  him  once  assume  that  consciousness  is  present  in  his 
mechanism,  and  that  it  is  a  reality  and  no  mere  appear- 


32  Conception  of  the  Individual 

ance;  then  I  say  that  he  can  no  longer  hold  that  con- 
sciousness makes  no  difference.  And  this  means  that 
the  future  of  the  object  before  him  is  no  longer  mechani- 
cally inevitable.  For  the  very  inevitableness  of  the 
mechanical  outcome  presupposes  that  the  action  is  not 
conscious.  Conceive,  for  example,  that  the  locomotive 
of  our  illustration  knows  where  it  is  and  whither  it  is 
bound  (and  disregard  the  crudity  of  the  assumption); 
you  cannot  then  conceive  that  it  should  still  unresistingly 
follow  the  path  of  certain  destruction.  Any  conscious- 
ness that  you  assume  implies  a  certain  measure  of  self- 
control  and  self-adjustment  for  self-valuable  ends. 

§  20.  But  our  chief  concern  is  with  social  relations. 
Let  us  proceed,  then,  to  a  still  cruder  illustration.  Imag- 
ine two  such  locomotives  approaching  each  other  on  the 
same  track.  I  say  now  that  you  cannot  conceive  them 
to  know  what  they  are  doing  without  conceiving  them 
to  adjust  their  actions  for  mutual  advantage.  For  con- 
sider what  it  means  to  say  of  anything  that  it  knows 
what  it  is  doing.  Our  two  locomotives,  by  hypothesis, 
do  not  know.  This  means,  for  them,  that  neither  knows 
the  other.  Accordingly,  neither  acts  with  reference  to 
the  other.  Each,  so  to  speak,  lives  in  a  world  which 
includes  only  itself,  and  each  acts  just  as  it  would  act 
if  the  other  were  non-existent.  All  this  is  implied  in  the 
very  "blindness"  of  their  mechanical  nature,  which 
means  that  the  presence  of  others  in  their  path  makes 
no  difference  in  their  present  action.  But  now  let  them 
know.  A  crude  psychology  might  suggest  that  each 
might  still  know  solely  itself.  But  if  you  knew  only 
yourself,  where,  what,  and  who  would  you  be?  And 
what  would  you  really  be  doing?  The  most  elementary 
condition  of  knowing  yourself  is  that  you  know  yourself 
as  one  in  a  world  with  others.  Not  necessarily  any 


The  Idealistic  Social  Order  '  33 

human  others.  Robinson,  spontaneously  generated  on 
his  island,  must  have  known  himself  as  some  sort  of 
living  being  in  contrast  to  the  presumably  lifeless 
objects  of  the  physical  world  about  him,  and  in  some 
sort  as  a  human  being  in  contrast  to  the  plants  and 
animals.  But  to  know  yourself  as  a  human  individual 
and  a  person  you  require  the  contrast  of  your  fellow-men. 
Only  by  contrast  to  them  do  you  know  who  you  are,  and 
only  by  contrast  to  their  aims  and  what  they  are  doing 
do  you  know  what  you  yourself  are  doing.  And  so  that 
very  consciousness  which  reveals  to  you  yourself  and 
your  own  aims,  reveals  the  presence  and  the  aims  of 
others.  Not  merely  do  you  know  them  as  so  many 
bodies  moving  in  space.  If  that  is  all,  you  hardly  know 
them  at  all.  And  in  this  sense  you  would  not  even  know 
yourself.  But  just  so  far  as  you  know  what  it  is  to  be 
yourself  a  living  being,  engaged  in  the  realization  of 
plans,  purposes  and  ideals,  so  far  do  you  find  yourself 
in  a  world  with  other  living  beings,  whose  actions  are 
made  intelligible  to  you  by  an  appreciation  of  the  pur- 
poses at  which  they  aim. 

But  when  you  have  thus  found  yourself  in  a  world  with 
others  your  situation  is  thereby  completely  changed. 
Your  purpose  cannot  now  be  to  move  blindly  ahead  like 
a  locomotive  or  a  cannon-ball,  for  a  purpose  so  expressed 
involves  its  own  defeat.  Unconsciously,  as  a  creature  of 
habit  or  prejudice,  you  might  pursue  this  course,  but  self- 
consciously never.  Even  if  the  obstacles  in  your  path 
were  things  of  wood  or  stone,  of  which  your  knowledge 
were  purely  external,  or  supposing  that  your  knowl- 
edge of  your  human  obstacles  were  of  this  purely  exter- 
nal sort,  unillumined  by  any  conception  of  intelligible 
purpose,  still  the  fact  that  they  stand  in  your  way,  that 
fact  alone  as  a  fact  known  by  you,  must  involve  a  cer- 
3 


34  *  Conception  of  the  Individual 

tain  readjustment  of  your  course  of  action,  a  certain 
harmony  between  yourself  and  the  world,  in  order  in 
any  measure  to  realize  your  own  aims.  In  other  words, 
any  consciousness  whatever  is  forever  bound  to  make  a 
difference  in  the  direction  of  adjustment.  But  when  the 
consciousness  is  of  your  fellow-man  the  difference  be- 
comes immensely  more  significant.  For  not  merely  do 
you  know  him,  he  also  knows  you.  And  not  merely 
can  you  adjust  to  him,  he  can  also  adjust  to  you. 
And  the  knowledge  of  each  is  no  longer  the  knowledge 
of  a  merely  external  object.  For  by  the  fact  that  you 
are  both  conscious,  you  are  now  in  communication, 
whereby  each  is  enabled  to  view  the  world  before  him, 
his  relation  to  mechanical  objects  and  his  relation  to 
his  human  fellows,  not  merely  from  his  own  point  of  view 
but  equally  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  other. 

But  this  fact  of  communication  involves  important 
practical  consequences.  When  you  encounter  an  ob- 
stacle in  your  path,  say,  a  tree,  you  avoid  it  and  that 
is  the  end  of  the  matter.  But  when  you  come  into  con- 
tact with  your  fellow-man  it  will  not  pay  you  merely 
to  avoid  him.  By  the  fact  that  he  also  is  a  conscious 
being,  and  capable  of  coming  to  terms  with  you,  the  logic 
of  the  situation  is  completely  altered,  and  the  problem  is 
now  not  merely  to  leave  each  party  free  to  move  but  to 
cooperate  for  positive  mutual  advantage.  If,  now,  you 
will  consider  all  these  details,  if  you  will  but  reflect  upon 
the  multiplicity  of  reciprocal  relations  which  are  involved 
in  the  mere  fact  that  each  party  to  the  situation  knows 
what  he  is  doing,  you  will  find,  I  think,  that  this  con- 
clusion is  unavoidable,  and  that  the  contrary  is  posi- 
tively inconceivable,  —  namely,  that  by  the  same  logic 
by  which  I,  seeing  a  tree  in  my  path,  must  be  conceived 
to  avoid  that  tree,  so  must  you  and  I,  as  conscious  of 


The  Idealistic  Social  Order  35 

- 


ourselves and  conscious  of  each  other  in  a  social  situa- 


tion, be  conceived  so  to  adjust  our  actions  for 
profit  as  to  secure  perfect  harmony  and  perfect  individual 
freedom;  and  if  the  harmony  be  in  any  measure  incom- 
plete, if  it  be  tainted  by  any  measure  of  compromise  / 
or  mutual  self-sacrifice,  then  you  must  say  that,  so  far,  j 
we  do  not  yet  fully  know  ourselves  or  each  other. 

§  21.  And  therefore,  when  we  are  confronted  with  a 
case,  where,  as  it  seems,  two  purposes  do  in  fact  conflict, 
and  where  to  all  appearances  the  conflict  is  hopeless  and 
inevitable,  we  shall  be  compelled  to  deny  that  the  pur- 
poses in  question  are  yet  fully  self-conscious.  In  other 
words,  they  are  not  truly  purposive.  For  it  lies  in  the 
very  conception  of  purpose,  as  the  purpose  of  a  self- 
conscious  agent,  to  be  infinitely  adjustable  while  ever 
self  -identical.  And  here  once  more  we  have  the  essen- 
tial point  of  contrast  between  a  purposive  and  a  purely 
mechanical  action.  Two  billiard-balls  converging  upon 
the  same  point  are  bound  to  collide  because  each,  abso- 
lutely at  the  mercy  of  the  present  force,  knows  of  no 
other  way.  Two  men,  purposing  to  occupy  the  same 
chair,  are  similarly  bound  to  collide,  if,  like  the  billiard- 
balls,  they  are  at  the  mercy  of  the  present  stimulus. 
But  if  either  is  capable  of  reflection  —  that  is  to  say,  if 
the  point  of  view  of  either  extends  beyond  the  present 
moment  —  then  collision  is  no  longer  inevitable.  One 
of  them  will  discover,  very  likely,  another  mode  of 
behavior  which  will  serve  his  purpose  just  as  well,  if  not 
better.  And  this  will  make  it  clear  that  his  purpose 
was  not,  after  all,  definitely  determined  to  that  particu- 
lar object.  Such,  indeed,  is  our  common  human  experi- 
ence. Reflection  never  leaves  a  purpose  just  where  it 
was,  even  while  it  reveals  more  clearly  the  fact  of  a 
consistently  individual  purpose.  And  though  reflection 


36  Conception  of  the  Individual 

seems  only  to  confirm  your  original  choice,  yet  it  is  never 
quite  the  same  choice.  You  may  say,  "If  I  had  it  to 
do  over  again  I  would  do  the  same  thing,"  e.g.,  insist 
upon  having  that  chair.  Yes,  but  insistence  from  your 
present  point  of  view  would  include  some  suggestion 
for  the  convenience  of  the  other  man.  And  to  this  ex- 
tent it  may  be  said  that  a  larger  consciousness  of  the 
situation  has  indeed  resulted  in  the  discovery  of  some 
other  way.  Now  it  may  be  that  within  our  human 
experience  the  other  way  is  never  discovered.  The  dis- 
appointed lover  may  feel  to  the  end  of  his  life  that  he 
missed  his  one  chance  of  happiness.  But  this  in  no  wise 
invalidates  our  statement  of  the  logical  relations.  For 
obviously  he  has  a  very  limited  knowledge  of  possible 
other  ways  for  him.  And  just  this  is  true  of  all  of  our 
human  knowledge.  Because  of  its  limitations  we  can 
never  definitively  assert  of  a  given  case  that  there  was 
no  other  way.  But  in  the  meantime  we  can  with  con- 
fidence assert  that  every  larger  consciousness  of  a  given 
situation  does  in  fact  reveal  a  larger  range  of  choice, 
through  which  an  individual  purpose  may  be  adjusted 
to  a  larger  variety  of  other  purposes  and  at  the  same 
time  be  fulfilled  in  harmony  with  itself. 

§  22.  In  these  conscious  relations  of  conscious  beings 
we  have,  then,  the  true  ground  of  the  idealistic  theory 
of  social  relations.  The  idealistic  theory  holds  that  the 
interests  of  human  individuals  are  essentially  in  har- 
mony. But  this  harmony,  we  may  now  see,  is  not 
divinely  preestablished.  It  does  not  rest  upon  the 
opaque  fact  that  man  is  a  political  animal.  Nor  is  it 
the  hereditary  derivative  of  a  common  human  ancestry, 
nor  on  the  other  hand  of  a  "social"  education,  —  nor. 
again,  of  a  mysterious  "consciousness  of  kind."  It 
exists,  so  far  as  it  exists,  solely  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that 


The  Idealistic  Social  Order  37 

men  are  conscious  beings  and  therefore  know  themselves 
and  one  another.  Consciousness  does  not,  then,  simply 
reveal  a  unity  already  implicit  in  our  mechanical  struc- 
ture and  therefore  inevitable  in  the  outcome;  conscious-  v>- 
ness  creates  a  unity  which,  but  for  consciousness,  would  J<L*"* 
in  no  sense  exist.  Nor  does  consciousness  secure  its 
unity  by  a  mutual  concession  of  individual  claims.  The 
need  of  such  concession  presupposes  a  mechanical  view  of 
the  social  situation.  And  the  unity  of  mutual  concession 
is  not  a  true  unity.  It  is  a  unity  only  in  the  Pickwickian 
sense,  —  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  Romans  claimed 
to  have  "pacified"  their  rebellious  provinces.  Accord- 
ing to  the  logic  of  the  idealistic  view  the  unity  to  be 
secured  by  conscious  adjustment  involves  nothing  less 
than  the  complete  fulfilment  of  all  individual  purposes. 
Given  any  two  beings,  A  and  B.  Let  them  have  ends 
which,  mechanically,  are  as  conflicting  and  as  hostile 
as  you  please.  Then  let  them  become  fully  conscious 
of  their  ends.  According  to  the  logic  of  idealism  these 
ends  will  then  both  be  fully  realized. 

§  23.  This  extreme  form  of  statement  may  seem  at 
first  glance  to  place  the  idealistic  theory  beyond  the 
range  of  rational  consideration.  But  in  reality  it  states 
nothing  more  than  the  logical  consequence  of  a  doctrine 
which  is  current  in  daily  thought.  Our  common  sense 
believes  that  the  intelligence  which  enables  us  to  adjust 
our  actions  to  our  physical  environment  should  enable 
us  all  the  more  to  adjust  our  actions  to  each  other.  It 
is  a  common  saying  that  two  intelligent  beings  ought  not 
to  quarrel  like  cats  and  dogs.  And  in  our  more  philo- 
sophical moments  we  doubt  whether,  for  truly  intelli- 
gent and  self-conscious  beings,  there  could  be  just  cause 
for  any  hostility  whatever.  No  doubt  this  thought  is 
encumbered  with  the  notion  of  mutual  concessions. 


38  Conception  of  the  Individual 

Yet  at  the  same  time  it  stands  for  more.  For  when  the 
adjustment  is  effected  without  the  need  of  concession 
we  note  a  superior  intelligence.  And  it  is  the  crowning 
distinction  of  men,  as  a  race  of  rational  and  self-conscious 
beings,  that  for  them  such  adjustments  are  possible. 
All  this  is  implied  in  our  common  view.  We  assume, 
indeed,  that  human  intelligence  has  its  practical  limits. 
But  we  also  have  in  mind  the  conception  of  an  intelli- 
gence which  exceeds  these  limits.  And  we  simply  ex- 
press the  essential  attribute  of  intelligence  when  we  say 
that  for  God  all  things  are  possible;  for  a  perfect  intel- 
ligence all  problems  are  soluble. 

§  24.  I  have  presented  so  far  only  a  bare  scheme  of 
conscious  social  relations.  The  lectures  to  follow  will 
as  far  as  possible  fill  in  the  details  and  develop  the 
meaning  of  these  ideas  for  our  practical  social  life.  But 
before  passing  further  I  wish  to  anticipate  an  objection 
which  you  are  probably  now  ready  to  offer.  For  I  fancy 
I  hear  you  saying:  "Yes,  you  have  developed  the  har- 
mony; but  a  harmony  of  rather  a  strange  and  unin- 
spiring kind,  —  a  mathematical  rather  than  a  musical 
harmony.  For  what  you  offer  is  really  only  a  neatly 
scientific  adjustment  of  cold-blooded,  calculating  beings. 
You  are  very  far  from  picturing  that  communion  of 
noble  souls  united  in  love,  which  is  the  real  object  of  our 
higher  social  and  spiritual  aspirations." 

I  have  reserved  an  explicit  answer  to  this  objection 
for  the  Third  Lecture,  but  for  the  present  I  will  reply 
that  whether  you  judge  this  conception  of  harmony  to  be 
noble  and  inspiring  or  cold-blooded  and  mean  will  depend 
upon  the  fineness  and  richness  of  the  individual  natures 
which  you  conceive  to  be  thus  harmonized.  For  clear- 
ness of  analysis  I  have  been  obliged  to  choose  rather 
crudely  mechanical  illustrations,  whose  analogues  in 


The  Idealistic  Social  Order  39 

human  life  would  be  found  chiefly  in  the  relatively 
impersonal  issues  of  the  market-place.  Here,  without 
doubt,  the  harmony  of  interests  wears  the  aspect  of  a 
cold-blooded,  scientific  adjustment.  But  let  the  interests 
in  question  be  as  personal  as  you  please,  and  let  the  har- 
mony of  interests  be  spiritually  perfect;  I  say  that  the 
principle  of  harmony  is  still  the  same  as  before,  only  now 
for  the  first  time  fully  realized  as  a  harmony  of  per- 
sonally concrete  ends.  For  if  your  communion  of  souls 
be  a  real  communion  —  if  it  be  not  merely  an  all-absorb- 
ing ecstacy  of  emotion  or  a  blind  rage  of  sexual  excite- 
ment —  it  can  be  a  communion  only  of  natures  that 
are  individually  distinct.  And  if  you  reply  that  now, 
however,  there  is  no  distinction  of  individuals,  since  each 
has  made  the  interests  of  the  other  wholly  his  own,  I 
shall  return  the  answer  that,  in  the  sense  in  which  that 
could  be  true  here,  it  is  true  also,  only  less  completely, 
of  the  relations  of  men  in  the  market-place.  For  so  far 
as  you  find  it  important  to  deal  with  your  fellow  in  any 
relation,  so  far  are  you  obliged  to  take  account  of  his 
plans  and  purposes  and  to  include  them  as  far  as  possible 
in  the  problem  you  are  trying  to  solve.  Even  in  the 
business  world  it  is  important  to  understand  the  point 
of  view  of  the  other  man,  and  once  understood,  you 
cannot  treat  it  with  indifference.  But  in  the  field  of 
intimate  personal  relations  the  interests  to  be  coordinated 
are  vastly  more  subtle  and  complex;  the  aspects  of 
mutual  relationship  are  there  inconceivably  delicate, 
inconceivably  numerous  and  involved;  and  any  com- 
pleted harmony  of  interests  is  now  a  thing  of  beauty. 
Just  because  of  this  complexity  of  relationship  the 
interests  of  your  fellow  are  now  your  very  intimate 
personal  concern.  Only,  not  because  they  are  identical 
with  your  own,  but  because  of  their  intimate  response 


40  Conception  of  the  Individual 

to  your  own.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  in  loving 
we  love  always  another.  He  whom  you  love  is  never 
merely  the  reflection  of  yourself  but  your  spiritual  com- 
plement and  counterpart.  And  perfect  love  is  simply 
a  perfect  mutual  response  between  perfectly  individual 
beings. 


Conceptions  of  Nature  41 


V  THE  Two  CONCEPTIONS  OF  NATURE 

For  each  of  the  alternative  conceptions  of  the  individ- 
ual and  of  the  social  order  there  will  be  found,  as  I  have 
suggested,  a  corresponding  conception  of  nature,  a  brief 
consideration  of  which  will  occupy  us  in  this  closing 
section.  We  shall  see,  indeed,  that  our  materialistic 
and  idealistic  points  of  view  represent  two  systems  of 
ideas,  each  coherent  in  its  way,  in  which  the  conceptions 
of  the  individual,  of  society,  and  of  nature  are  correla- 
tive and  mutually  determining.  Yet  the  introduction 
of  the  conception  of  nature  is  not  for  the  sake  of  mere 
formal  completeness,  but  for  the  elucidation  of  certain 
important  points  in  the  conception  of  social  relations. 

§  25.  You  have  already  noted  the  intrusion  of  the 
question  of  environmental  conditions  into  that  of  social 
relations.  In  our  analysis  of  the  mechanical  view  it  was 
pointed  out  that  the  environment  is  there  assumed  to 
be  a  perfectly  definite  quantity.  And  in  our  idealistic 
analysis  of  a  case  of  conflicting  interests,  you  may  have 
asked, — in  spite  of  the  argument  offered  —  "What  if 
there  really  be  no  other  way?  In  other  words,  granting 
all  the  intelligence  you  please,  does  the  matter  finally 
rest  with  intelligence?  Has  not  the  environment  some- 
thing to  say?"  For  of  course  it  will  be  obvious  that 
every  adjustment  of  individual  interests  involves  a 
transaction  with  Nature,  —  that  is  to  say,  a  process  of 
controlling  or  manipulating  the  environmental  condi- 
tions for  the  accommodation  of  both  parties.  But  if 
Nature  may  refuse  to  be  controlled;  if  she  may  say  to 
us,  "This  and  no  other  way  is  offered  for  the  fulfilment 
of  your  individual  purposes,"  and  if  the  way  be  too 
narrow  for  both  purposes,  then  of  course  the  harmony 


42  Conception  of  the  Individual 

of  interests  is  altogether  meaningless,  —  and  more  than 
ever  when  it  is  conceived  to  demand  complete  individ- 
ual satisfaction.  Let  us  see,  then,  how  our  alternative 
conceptions  respond  to  the  question  of  environmental 
control. 

§  26.  For  the  mechanical  view  there  should  be,  in 
strict  logic,  no  possibility  of  control.  For  control  implies 
adjustment,  and  as  we  have  noted,  any  adjustment 
whatever  implies  a  certain  degree  of  consciousness  and 
meaning.  But,  here  as  before,  we  may  refrain  from 
driving  our  mechanical  individual  to  his  last  logical 
ditch.  Let  us  ask  rather  what  measure  of  control  he 
commonly  claims  for  himself.  Now,  in  the  background 
of  all  economic  analyses  of  value  lies  the  conception  of 
a  scarcity  of  the  means  of  subsistence.  "At  Nature's 
mighty  feast,"  in  Mai  thus'  celebrated  phrase,  covers 
are  not  laid  for  everybody;  and  the  guests  who  arrive 
late  can  secure  subsistence  for  themselves  only  by  dis- 
possessing those  already  there.  This  fact  of  scarcity 
is  held  responsible  for  the  phenomenon  of  value.  If 
each  could  secure  without  sacrifice  all  that  he  ever 
desired,  nothing  would  have  a  price.  There  would  be  no 
contrast  between  want  and  satisfaction,  no  basis  for  the 
comparison  of  different  goods,  and  the  question  of  worth 
or  desirability  would  consequently  never  arise.  Hence 
the  whole  question  of  individual  interests  arises  out  of 
the  fact  of  "Nature's  scanty  supply";  and  according 
to  the  mechanical  view  this  scantiness  is  a  fact  to  be 
reckoned  with  in  all  adjustments  of  social  relations. 
Yet  the  fact  that  it  is  reckoned  with  presupposes  that 
the  situation  is  not  altogether  beyond  control.  It  may 
be  mitigated  by  intelligent  distribution,  or  the  quantity 
of  goods  may  by  cooperation  even  be  increased.  But 
these  remedial  measures  have  their  strict  limits,  as  ex- 


Conceptions  of  Nature  43 

pressed  in  the  "law  of  diminishing  returns."  Accord- 
ing to  this  law  we  arrive  sooner  or  later  —  and  for  the 
more  strictly  mechanical  view,  sooner  —  at  a  point 
where  increased  expenditure  of  capital  and  labor  upon 
land  yields  no  further  increase  of  product,  —  where, 
in  other  words,  the  supply  of  goods  furnished  by  the 
environment  has  become  a  fixed  and  unalterable  fact. 

§  27.  The  nature  of  this  fact  determines  the  nature 
of  our  social  relations.  For  the  mechanical  view  the 
environment  is  a  fact  of  definitely  limited  capacity.  As 
such  it  is  not  only  similar  in  kind  to  the  mechanical 
individual  but  his  strictly  logical  correlate.  For  if  the 
individual  were  indefinitely  self-adjustable,  and  possessed 
an  indefinite  capacity  for  the  reconstruction  of  his  world, 
the  world  could  of  course  offer  no  barriers  to  his  satis- 
faction; otherwise  we  should  have  the  contradiction  of 
the  irresistible  force  and  the  immovable  body.  As 
mechanical  facts,  however,  the  individual  and  his  envi- 
ronment limit  each  other.  But  the  environment,  in 
limiting  the  individual,  limits  also  the  unity  of  individ- 
ual interests;  for  this  unity  presupposes,  as  we  have 
seen, that  all  interests  may  be  fully  satisfied;  while  the 
limited  supply  means  that  each  is  to  be  satisfied  only 
at  the  expense  of  another;  what  you  gain,  I  necessarily 
lose.  On  this  assumption  it  is  obvious  that  any  real 
harmony  of  interests  is  both  impossible  and  absurd. 

§  28.  All  this,  you  will  see,  simply  fulfils  the  logic  of 
the  mechanical  theory.  For,  as  we  have  noted  earlier, 
the  essential  feature  of  the  mechanical  world  is  that  it  is 
a  world  of  determinate  quantities.  It  consists  of  indi- 
viduals of  a  determinate  and  fixed  character;  its  social 
order  is  determined  by  the  character  of  its  individuals; 
and  its  environment  is  opposed  to  its  individuals  as  a 
fixed  and  immovable  fact.  It  is  true  that  in  working 


/j/j  Conception  of  the  Individual 

out  the  conception  the  several  elements  are  often  loosely 
conceived.  The  individual  is  given  a  certain  measure 
of  freedom,  society  a  certain  measure  of  internal  adjusta- 
bility, and  the  environment  a  certain  measure  of  elas- 
ticity. But  even  these  measures  have  their  narrow  and 
final  limits.  The  world  may  indeed  be  a  sort  of  trunk 
whose  capacity  may  be  increased  by  skilful  packing, 
but,  like  the  trunk  again,  its  maximum  capacity  is  fixed. 
In  this  fixed  capacity  we  have  its  essential  feature  and, 
as  we  shall  now  see,  the  essential  point  of  contrast 
between  the  mechanical  world  and  the  world  as  conceived 
by  idealism. 

§  29.  We  have  noted  that  from  the  mechanical 
assumption  of  an  ultimately  fixed  natural  supply  the 
economist  deduces  a  law  of  diminishing  returns.  But 
for  our  common  view  this  scarcity  of  supply  is  offset 
more  or  less  by  the  factors  of  human  skill  and  coopera- 
tion. From  these,  however,  more  especially  from  the 
latter,  our  economist  deduces  an  opposite 4  law  of 
increasing  returns,  which  holds  that  the  product  is 
increased  by  industrial  combination.  Here,  again,  how- 
ever, as  in  the  case  of  the  conception  of  scarcity,  the  full 
implications  of  the  assumption  are  very  imperfectly 
conceived.  For  while  in  the  one  case  the  scarcity  is 
regarded  as  more  or  less  remediable,  —  from  considera- 
tions quite  at  variance  with  the  logic  which  treats  it  as  a 
finally  fixed  fact;  so  in  the  other  case  the  advantages  of 
combination  are  held  to  be  essentially  limited,  —  and 
again  from  considerations  which  simply  contradict  those 
from  which  we  attribute  to  combination  any  advantage 

4  Professor  H.  J.  Davenport  holds  that  these  laws  are  not  opposite  but 
deal  with  two  sets  of  unrelated  facts;  and  he  therefore  re-names  them  as 
follows:  the  law  of  proportion  of  factors;  the  law  of  advantage  and  size. 
See  The  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  Vol.  XXIII,  August,  1909. 


Conceptions  of  Nature  45 

whatever.  The  truth  is  that  the  common  view,  and  even 
the  economic  view,  is  not  strictly  logical.  It  simply 
notes  that  the  scarcity  of  supply  is  not  absolute,  while  on 
the  other  hand  combination  is  not  absolutely  effective,! 
without  investigating  the  assumptions  regarding  the 
world  and  the  individual  upon  which  either  could  be! 
asserted  as  true. 

§  30.  Now,  according  to  the  logic  of  idealism,  for  the 
cooperation  of  intelligent  and  self-conscious  beings  the 
law  of  increasing  returns  is  a  strictly  universal  law. 
Such  cooperation  is  not  exclusively  a  social  fact.  It  is  ' 
rather,  as  will  appear  in  our  next  lecture,  a  conscious 
fact.  For  at  its  lowest  terms  the  conception  of  the  con- 
scious individual  is  of  one  who  in  some  degree  cooperates 
with  himself.  As  a  conscious  individual  Peter  of  today 
considers  the  needs  of  Peter  of  tomorrow  and  Peter  of 
tomorrow  carries  out  the  plans  of  Peter  of  today.  Only 
to  the  extent  that  this  is  true  is  Peter  a  conscious  agent, 
and  only  to  this  extent  is  his  consciousness  effective  in 
producing  results.  And  when  Peter  of  today  and  to- 
morrow form  a  similar  relation  with  Peter  of  the  day 
after  the  effectiveness  is  so  far  increased.  The  same 
holds  true  when  Peter  forms  a  partnership  with  Paul. 
I  suppose  it  may  be  said  that,  even  on  terms  of  the 
lowest  intelligence,  such  an  alliance  will  stand  for  a  cer- 
tain increase  of  the  combined  product.  The  amount  of 
increase  will  then  be  a  function,  in  the  mathematical 
sense,  of  the  extent  to  which  each  is  aware  of  his  own 
purposes  and  at  the  same  time  of  the  purposes  of  his 
partner.  And  when  a  third  partner  is  introduced  the 
per  capita  as  well  as  the  total  output  will  be  still  fur- 
ther increased  in  a  corresponding  degree,  —  provided,  of 
course,  the  mutual  understanding  is  now  as  complete  as 
before.  And  so,  for  the  logic  of  idealism,  this  law  of 


46  Conception  of  the  Individual 

increasing  returns  is,  for  the  cooperation  of  conscious 
beings,  a  strictly  universal  law.  It  is  a  law  derived  from 
the  nature  of  consciousness  itself,  and  apart  from  con- 
sciousness it  has  no  validity  whatever.  But  for  the  co- 
operation of  conscious  agents  it  is  true  without  limit. 
If  all  conscious  beings  worked  together  in  perfect  mutual 
understanding  there  could  remain  no  individual  purpose 
not  fully  satisfied.  If,  then,  you  claim  that  the  law 
is  contradicted  by  the  facts  of  economic  life  —  if,  for 
example,  you  show  that  the  advantages  of  organization 
disappear  after  a  certain  size  is  reached  —  your  idealist 
will  reply  that  at  that  point  there  is  also  a  decrease  of 
mutual  understanding  among  the  several  parties  to  the 
combination.  He  may  be  unable  to  explain  why  mutual 
comprehension  should  be  more  difficult  for  a  multitude 
of  agents  than  for  two  or  three;  that,  of  course,  is  but 
one  aspect  of  the  general  limitations  of  our  consciousness. 
In  any  case  he  will  still  be  able  to  hold  that  for  conscious 
cooperation  the  per  capita  output  is  in  forever  ascending 
ratio. 

§  31.  According  to  this  view  the  environment  of  self- 
conscious  agents  is  not  a  fixed  fact,  but  an  indefinitely 
elastic  fact.  And  this  assumption  is  indispensable  to 
the  idealistic  doctrine  of  an  essential  harmony  of  inter- 
ests. I  have  stated  the  situation  in  terms  of  "  increasing 
returns"  of  consumable  goods,  because  in  these  terms 
the  relations  are  most  easily  formulated.  But  you  will 
readily  see  that  in  its  final  significance  the  law  is  much 
more  abstract.  It  will  then  stand,  not  alone  for  in- 
crease of  goods,  but  for  increase  of  opportunity,  —  of 
freedom  of  choice  and  movement.  Only  as  you  assume 
that  our  environment  may  be  enlarged,  and  its  oppor- 
tunities increased,  by  mutual  understanding  and  coopera- 
tion, can  you  affirm  an  essential  harmony  of  interests. 


- 


Conceptions  of  Nature  47 

And  only  as  you  assume  this  can  you  affirm  that  our 
consciousness  is  in  any  way  effective.  If  you  and  I  are 
enclosed  within  a  narrow  space,  so  that  your  being 
in  the  world  restricts  my  freedom  of  choice  and  move- 
ment, it  is  idle  to  say  that  our  interests  are  essentially 
harmonious.  And  if  our  consciousness  can  do  naught 
but  recognize  the  situation,  the  harmony  is  not  thereby 
increased.  I  may,  indeed,  find  it  advisable  not  to 
crowd  you  too  far;  but  this  will  be  far  from  making  your 
interests  my  own.  For  all  the  time  I  should  be  better 
off  if  I  could  get  rid  of  you  altogether.  Only  as  your 
being  in  the  world  makes  my  world  larger  can  your 
interests  be  genuinely  mine.  But  this  will  never  be 
unless  our  world  is  made  actually  larger  by  mutual 
understanding  and  cooperation. 

§  32.  And  so,  where  the  mechanical  view  offers  us  an 
individual,  a  social  order  and  an  environment  which 
are  strictly  determinate  and  limited,  idealism  offers  a 
world  in  which  these  terms  are  strictly  unlimited  and 
indeterminate.  Yet  none  the  less  are  they  strictly  cor- 
relative. For  the  idealistic  environment  is  not  just 
anything  you  please.  It  is  a  term  to  be  defined  with 
reference  to  the  individual  or  group  of  individuals  who 
propose  to  deal  with  it.  In  the  mathematical  sense,  it  is 
a  function  of  our  knowledge  of  it, — a  useful  instrument 
as  far  as  we  have  knowledge,  as  far  as  we  are  ignorant 
a  source  of  resistance.  But  this  knowledge  of  the  world 
is  again  a  function  of  our  self-knowledge.  For  to  say 
that  a  given  object  possesses  such  and  such  a  character 
is  to  say  what  we  can  or  cannot  do  with  it;  and  this, 
again,  is  to  state  the  nature  and  extent  of  our  own 
capacities  and  powers.  The  environment  is  thus  co- 
ordinate with  the  nature  of  the  agent.  Yet  the  two  are 
not  mutually  restrictive.  For  we  are  not  now  dealing 


48  Conception  of  the  Individual 

with  a  reality  conceived  as  a  fixed  and  determinate 
whole,  so  that  none  of  its  constituents  can  expand 
except  at  the  expense  of  another.5  Rather  is  our  reality 
such  that  the  self-expansion  of  any  one  element  involves 
the  corresponding  expansion  of  every  other,  and  infinite 
self-expansion  is  a  property  coordinately  potential  to  all 
the  members  of  the  system. 

§  33.  When  the  logic  of  the  idealistic  view  is  thus 
revealed,  it  is  easy  to  see  why  the  idealist  is  in  general 
an  unconditional  optimist,  why  he  can  place  no  limits  to 
the  possible  realization  of  the  individual  self  and  none, 
again,  to  the  essential  harmony  of  individual  interests. 
If  you  suggest  to  him  that  we  are  ."up  against"  Nature, 
he  can  reply  that  whether  we  are  against  Nature  or  with 
her  —  or  whether  Nature  is  against  or  with  us  —  de- 
pends upon  the  extent  to  which  we  act  self-consciously 
and  intelligently,  —  upon  the  extent,  in  other  words,  to 
which  we  know  what  we  are  doing.  And  he  can  point 
out  very  readily  that  Nature  is  nothing  of  herself  and 
offers  nothing  of  herself.  Iron  ore  for  the  primitive  man 
and  iron  ore  for  the  modern  chemist  are  two  very  dif- 
ferent things.  The  opportunities  and  satisfactions  of 
the  ancient  world  were  limited  by  very  imperfect  means 
of  communication.  Yet  the  materials  of  which  we  con- 
struct our  modern  telegraphs  and  steamships  were  in 
the  earth  then  as  now.  In  reality  nothing  has  changed 
but  man.  And  the  change  in  man  has  been  a  growing 
consciousness  of  himself.  As  the  result  of  this  the  his- 
tory of  the  race  has  been  a  continuous  process  of  making 
the  world  in  which  we  live  larger,  more  fruitful,  and  more 
commodious.  At  each  advance  it  has  been  proclaimed 
that  the  limit  of  expansion  had  been  reached,  —  or  would 
at  any  rate  be  reached  in  the  proximate  future.  But 

6  E.g.,  as  assumed  in  the  law  of  conservation  of  energy. 


J  / 


Conceptions  of  Nature  49 

any  assertion  of  a  limit,  whether  proximate  or  remote,  |u 
presupposes  that  nature  is  a  fixed  quantity  and  that  her 
character  is  independent  of  the  intelligence  with  which 
she  is  approached.  If,  however,  the  possibilities  of  the 
world  over  against  us  are  a  function  of  ourselves,  the 
notion  of  a  limit  falls  at  once  to  the  ground.  For  now\ 
if  you  would  define  the  ultimate  possibilities  of  progress,  \ 
you  must  at  the  same  time  define  the  ultimate  limits  of  1 
-our  nature  and  possibilities  as  conscious  agents.  And 
this  of  course  is  a  very  different  task  from  that  of  cal- 
culating the  strength  of  a  girder  or  the  horse-power  of  an 
engine.  For  that  matter  you  can  hardly  take  up  the 
task  without  discovering  that,  as  Professor  Royce  has 
shown,  consciousness  by  its  very  nature  is  unlimited 
and  infinite.  For  assume  that  you  have  finally  stated 
the  limits  of  your  conscious  self.  Any  such  statement 
involves  a  view  of  something  beyond;  and  therefore  in 
that  very  statement  you  will  be  occupying,  and  speaking 
from,  a  larger  point  of  view  than  that  of  the  self  you  set 
out  to  define.  This  expansion  of  your  point  of  view  is  a 
further  expansion  of  yourself;  and  this,  like  every  pre- 
vious expansion,  will  mean  that  your  capacity  for  dealing 
with  the  world  before  you  is  one  more  point  enlarged. 

§  34.  At  the  beginning  of  our  theoretical  analysis  I 
stated  that  our  two  abstract  conceptions  of  man,  nature 
and  the  social  order  would  serve  in  some  sort  as  stand- 
ards, or  dimensions,  by  means  of  which  we  may  esti- 
mate the  concrete  fact.  Only,  in  contrast  to  the  spatial 
dimensions,  they  mark  the  opposite  poles  —  or,  better, 
the  opposite  directions  —  of  a  continuous  series  of  dif- 
ferences. In  the  development  of  our  conceptions  I  have 
endeavored  to  suggest  the  manner  of  their  application, 
and  also  the  varying  extent  to  wiiich  each  is  true  of  actual 
4 


$6  Conception  of  the  Individual 

life.  For  if  we  should  ask  now  which  of  these  two  sys- 
tems of  thought  furnishes  a  true  explanation  of  concrete 
human  life,  the  answer  would  evidently  be:  both,  —  and 
also  neither.  Of  any  concrete  situation  both  are  co- 
ordinately  true,  each  as  the  obverse  of  the  other.  Our 
next  lecture  will  develop  this  thesis  in  detail.  I  shall 
endeavor  to  show  that  so  far  as  the  individual  is  truly 
a  conscious  being,  so  far  may  we  assert  of  him  as  a  fact 
all  that  is  claimed  for  him,  in  his  relations  to  society 
and  to  nature,  by  the  idealistic  philosophy.  But  on  the 
other  hand  I  shall  point  out  that  so  far  as  we  are  not 
truly  conscious,  so  far  are  we  in  fact  confined  to  the  limits 
marked  out  for  us  by  the  mechanical  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse; so  far  are  we  in  truth  essentially  limited  beings, 
doomed  to  mutual  hostility  and  to  a  servile  fear  of 
Nature.  And  we  shall  see  that  the  range  and  intensity 
of  our  present  human  consciousness  is  not  conspicuously 
great. 

§  35.  Yet  the  mere  combination  of  these  two  forms 
of  statement,  as  aspects  of  a  situation  in  which  each  is 
the  obverse  side  of  the  other,  may  suggest  that  the  pres- 
ent limitations  of  our  conscious  life  are  not  once  for 
all  fixed.  And  so,  in  closing  this  First  Lecture,  I  may 
venture  to  point  ahead  to  the  meaning  of  all  this  for  our 
theory  of  individualism,  and  the  sort  of  individualism 
which  this  is  intended  to  establish.  In  one  form  or 
another  some  consideration  of  the  individual  is  involved 
in  every  theory  of  conduct.  Even  those  who  insist  most 
strongly  upon  the  social  welfare,  or  the  common  good, 
as  the  final  and  sole  measure  of  moral  value  teach  that 
the  social  welfare,  to  constitute  a  moral  aim,  must  be 
freely  chosen.  And  probably  they  would  admit  that, 
in  last  analysis,  any  end  which  the  individual  can  be 
obliged  to  seek  must  be  in  some  sense  his  own.  The 


Conceptions  of  Nature  51 

result,  however,  is,  for  them,  the  so-called  "ethical 
paradox."  The  individual  is  told  that  his  act  must  be 
one  of  free,  personal  choice  and  at  the  same  time  warned 
that  his  personal  choice  must  be  to  sacrifice  himself  for 
the  good  of  society.  Any  compensation  for  himself 
must  be  found  in  the  "beauty  of  self-sacrifice."  To  my 
mind  this  is  indeed  a  paradox,  —  that  is  to  say,  it  is 
nonsense.  For  myself  I  can  see  no  beauty  in  self-sacri- 
fice. In  a  later  lecture  I  trust  I  may  be  able  to  make 
evident  the  beauty  of  an  attitude  of  generosity  and 
open-mindedness,  but  this  is  quite  another  thing.  And 
the  aim  of  these  lectures  is  to  show  that  not  only  is  the 
conception  of  self-sacrifice  in  itself  a  sentimental  and 
unintelligent  formulation  of  the  moral  ideal,  but  that 
it  rests  upon  a  misconception  of  ourselves  as  conscious 
beings.  It  elevates  into  a  moral  and  social  ideal  a  con- 
dition which  must  be  regarded  as  due  to  an  imperfection 
of  our  nature.  As  merely  mechanical  and  only  imper- 
fectly self-conscious  beings  our  individual  interests  are 
indeed  hostile,  and  the  combination  of  self-interest  and 
social  welfare  is  paradoxical  enough;  but  the  obligation 
of  self-sacrifice  is  then  equally  paradoxical.  As  con- 
scious beings,  however,  we  are  entitled  to  the  full  expres- 
sion of  our  individual  natures.  So  much  is  involved  in 
the  fact  and  meaning  of  our  consciousness.  But  as 
conscious  beings  it  is  our  distinctive  prerogative  that  we 
may  reach  a  condition  of  mutual  sympathy  and  under- 
standing, which  not  only  dispenses  with  self-sacrifice, 
but  presupposes,  and  at  the  same  time  secures,  through 
intelligent  cooperation  and  adjustment,  among  ourselves 
and  with  Nature,  a  perfect  individual  freedom. 


LECTURE  II 
THE  INDIVIDUAL  AS  A  CONSCIOUS   AGENT 


LECTURE  II 

THE  INDIVIDUAL  AS  A  CONSCIOUS  AGENT 
I  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

In  our  last  lecture  we  looked  upon  two  pictures  of 
the  individual:  the  mechanical  individual  whose  oppor- 
tunities are  diminished  and  restricted  by  the  presence 
of  others  in  his  world;  the  conscious,  or  spiritual,  indi- 
vidual for  whom  the  presence  of  others  means  a  larger 
and  freer  world.  In  the  present  lecture  we  are  to  see 
in  these  two  pictures  the  obverse  aspects  of  any  concrete 
individual,  and  at  the  same  time  of  any  concrete  social 
situation.  But  not  quite  immediately.  It  may  seem 
that  for  our  special  purpose  we  have  already  wandered 
sufficiently  in  remote  metaphysical  fields,  yet  I  must 
ask  you  to  join  me  in  one  more  such  expedition  before 
we  settle  down  to  a  contemplation  of  the  concrete  fact. 
For  if  we  are  to  speak  intelligently  of  the  various  degrees 
of  consciousness  we  must  approach  the  situation  with  a 
conception  of  consciousness  more  or  less  clearly  formu- 
lated, f 

§  36.  If  you  should  ask  an  empirical  psychologist  for 
a  definition  of  consciousness  you  would  very  likely 
learn  that  for  our  human  understanding  consciousness 
is  an  ultimate,  to  be  accepted  as  a  fact,  but  not  to  be 
defined.  As  Wundt  says,  das  Bewusstsein  lasst  sich 
nicht  definieren.  I  shall  not  pause  to  comment  upon 
the  erroneous  logic  which  delights  in  such  ultimates, 

55 


56  The  Conscious  Individual 

and  makes  the  reduction  to  the  ultimate  a  necessity  of 
any  definition.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  point  out  that 
as  a  matter  of  fact  consciousness  is  being  constantly  de- 
nned. Whenever  you  note  a  general  point  of  difference 
between  a  conscious  person  and  an  unconscious  thing 
you  offer,  so  far,  a  definition  of  consciousness.  And 
this  difference  may  be  stated  in  a  number  of  ways.  Of 
these  I  propose  to  select  for  our  purpose  the  one  which 
is  perhaps  most  widely  current  among  philosophers, 
namely,  that  consciousness  is  a  unity  in  diversity  and  a 
diversity  in  unity.  The  force  of  this  definition  is  often 
weakened  by  a  burden  of  emphasis  upon  the  unity.  We 
hear  much  of  the  unity  of  consciousness,  rather  less  of 
its  internal  diversity.  Men  may  go  so  far  as  to  say 
that  the  world  of  consciousness  is  one  while  the  mechani- 
cal world  is  many.  This,  however,  misses  the  point. 
According  to  the  definition  before  us  the  essential  dif- 
ference between  the  nature  of  consciousness  and  the 
nature  of  the  mechanical  world  lies  in  this:  that  con- 
sciousness is  both  one  and  many;  a  mechanical  reality 
may  be  one,  or  it  may  be  many,  as  you  may  choose 
to  consider  it,  but  it  can  never  be  both  many  and 
one. 

§  37.  At  first  glance  you  are  likely  to  think  that  such 
a  definition  is  both  too  abstract  to  be  useful  and  too 
remote  to  be  of  use  to  us.  let  I  hope  to  make  it  clear 
that  the  distinction  which  it  draws  is  not  only  the  most 
practical  and  comprehensible  of  all  distinctions  within 
our  special  field  of  discourse,  but  that  which  is  most 
vital  for  an  understanding  of  the  individual  and  his 
social  relations.  Let  us  approach  the  matter  as  before 
with  a  crude  illustration.  I  have  here,  let  us  say,  four 
billiard-balls  in  a  box  which  just  contains  them.  Here 
we  have  a  typical  case  of  bare  mechanical  fact.  Note, 


Consciousness  57 

then,  the  situation.  As  a  purely  mechanical  object 
each  billiard-ball  is  absolutely  exclusive  of  every  other. 
Its  being  is  one  of  absolute  isolation.  It  exists  purely 
in  and  for  itself,  and  it  is  what  it  is  purely  in  itself. 
That  is  to  say,  the  presence  of  the  other  balls  in  the  box 
makes  absolutely  no  difference.  Remove  it  from  the 
box  and  place  it  on  the  table,  it  is  still  just  what  it  was. 
The  "set"  of  balls  is  of  course  now  broken;  but  the  set 
is  a  fact  for  you,  and  not  for  the  ball  as  it  is  in  itself. 
As  a  strictly  external  and  mechanical  fact  each  ball  is 
complete  in  itself  and  its  being  is  independent  of  the 
being  of  any  other. 

But  now,  in  place  of  our  four  billiard-balls  substitute 
four  corresponding  ideas.  And  for  convenience  let  us 
say  that  each  ball  has  now  an  idea  of  itself,  or  in  other 
words,  is  now  aware  of  its  own  being  and  nature.  What 
is  the  difference?  If  you  accept  the  description  of  ideas 
to  be  found  in  the  ordinary  text-book  of  psychology  the 
difference  will  not  be  very  startling;  for  there,  it  would 
seem,  ideas  may  be  passed  around  in  much  the  same 
way  as  billiard-balls,  without  losing  their  identity  or 
changing  their  nature.  But  if  you  will  note  for  your- 
self what  is  involved  in  the  being  of  an  idea  you  will  dis- 
cover that  the  difference  is  as  broad  as  the  world  itself. 
For  as  the  being  of  a  billiard-ball  involves  extension  in 
space,  so  does  the  being  of  an  idea  involve  a  meaning. 
An  idea  without  a  meaning  is  as  little  of  an  entity  as  a) 
billiard-ball  without  spatial  extension.  But  here  again 
you  may  be  somewhat  at  sea.  For  the  text-books  of 
psychology  to  which  I  have  just  referred  may  have 
told  you  that  the  meaning  of  ideas  is  not  a  quality  of 
the  ideas  themselves  but  consists  in  the  relations  of 
ideas,  and  that  the  being  of  the  idea  itself  is  its  "con- 
tent." But  what  can  you  mean  by  "content"?  The 


58  The  Conscious  Individual 

content  of  a  billiard-ball  is  perhaps  the  ivory  of  which 
it  is  made.  But  what  is  an  idea  made  of?  Not  of  any 
"stuff,"  analogous  to  the  ivory  of  the  billiard-ball. 
The  sole  content  of  an  idea  is  what  it  means.  An  idea 
of  blue  is  not 'itself  blue,  it  means  blue.  And  if  it  means 
nothing  it  is  just  nothing  whatever. 

Now,  when  we  ask  what  is  involved  in  the  meaning 
of  an  idea,  we  find  that  the  very  meaning  which  con- 
stitutes the  being  of  the  idea  itself  includes  a  relation 
of  comparison  with  other  ideas.  Billiard-ball  number 
one  knows  itself.  But  what  does  it  mean  by  itself? 
At  the  lowest  terms  it  means  itself  as  something  which  is 
not  the  other  billiard-balls.  But  what  are  the  charac- 
teristics of  itself?  Again,  these  are  characters  which 
belong  to  itself  and  not  to  the  other  balls.  It  knows 
itself  as  red  while  the  others  are  white,  or  as  here  while 
they  are  there.  And  so,  if  ball  number  one  knows  itself, 
;  it  must  in  any  case  know  more  than  itself.  Otherwise  it 
'  knows  nothing  whatever,  and  there  is  no  such  idea  in 
existence.  And  so  of  them  all.  Any  idea  of  any  one 
must  include  at  least  some  idea  of  some  others.  Yet 
each  one's  idea  of  himself,  as  himself,  must  be  different 
from  the  idea  of  him  held  by  any  other. 

Accordingly,  where  material  things,  such  as  billiard- 
balls  are  by  their  very  nature  non-interpenetrable,  so 
that  each  must  remain  wholly  independent  and  exclu- 
sive of  the  other,  ideas  are  by  their  very  nature  obliged 
to  interpenetrate.  Only  as  idea  number  one  includes 
within  itself,  say,  idea  number  two  can  it  know  and 
mean  itself  as  idea  number  one.  Or  we  may  state  the 
matter  otherwise  by  saying  that,  where  the  billiard-ball 
maintains  its  identity,  and  its  being,  whether  in  the  box 
or  on  the  table,  or  whether  in  the  box  alone  or  with 
others,  the  idea  has  no  identity  and  no  being  except 


• 
" 


Consciousness  59 

as  its  being  includes  that  of  other  ideas  in  the  same 
mind.1 

§  38.  We  require,  however,  a  second  illustration. 
Our  first  has  dealt  with  a  case  of  two  coexistent  terms 
regarded  as  things  or  as  ideas.  But  the  conscious  life 
is  very  distinctly  related  to  temporal  succession.  We 
shall  see,  then,  that  the  same  conception  of  conscious- 
ness applies  to  two  terms  conceived  to  be  successive. 
Let  us  take  our  old  illustration  of  the  runaway  loco- 
motive and  consider  its  situation  at  successive  points 
in  its  career.  So  far  as  it  is  regarded  as  unconscious 
the  locomotive  of  each  moment  is  an  isolated  and  inde- 
pendent fact.  The  locomotive  of  the  present  moment 
is  quite  unconcerned  with  itself  of  ten  minutes  ago. 
How  it  happened  to  run  away,  with  what  original  supply 
of  coal  or  water,  or  even  pressure  of  steam,  —  these 
make  no  difference  to  the  present  locomotive.  Its  pres- 
ent action  is  a  function  purely  of  forces  acting  in  the 
present.  It  matters  not  how  these  came  to  be  what 
they  now  are;  the  locomotive  responds  only  to  what 
they  are,  and  as  long  as  they  are  sufficient  it  will  con- 

1  It  may  be  asked  here  whether  what  I  have  claimed  for  the  ideas 
is  not  also  true,  in  some  degree,  of  the  billiard-balls.  Is  not  the  billiard- 
ball  governed  by  the  laws  of  gravitation  and  conservation  of  energy? 
Is  not  its  spatial  location  here  and  now  determined  by  the  fact  that  this 
location  is  otherwise  unoccupied?  In  a  word,  is  not  the  billiard-ball, 
like  the  idea,  a  term  in  a  unitary  system?  No  doubt  it  is.  But  this 
admission  means  only  that  our  conception  of  an  absolutely  unconscious 
thing  is  inadequately  illustrated,  and  that  perhaps  no  adequate  illustra- 
tion is  to  be  found.  For  if  the  several  mechanical  objects  of  our  world 
are  terms  of  one  system  it  is  pertinent  to  ask  where  the  system  is  to  be 
located.  Not  in  the  objects;  for  then  the  system  would  be,  like  the 
object,  spread  out  over  space,  a  part  here  and  a  part  there,  and  the 
unity  of  these  parts  would  be  as  much  of  a  problem  as  ever.  But  if  you 
say  that  the  unity  is  implied  in  the  nature  of  each  part,  I  reply  that  the 
power  of  implication  belongs  only  to  ideas.  It  is  true  tlu:t  we  conca.-c, 


60  The  Conscious  Individual 

tinue  to  run.  It  is  equally  unconcerned  with  the  future. 
Whether  the  switch  ahead  of  it  is  open  or  closed  makes 
not  the  slightest  difference  in  its  present  speed.  As  a 
mechanical  object  the  locomotive  of  each  moment  exists 
wholly  in  and  for  itself,  and  the  successive  moments 
are  as  completely  outside  of  each  other  as  the  several 
billiard-balls. 

But  now  translate  these  several  moments  into  ideas. 
Assume  that  at  any  moment  the  locomotive  knows  what 
it  is  doing  and  where  it  now  is.  You  will  see  that  this 
assumption  implies  at  its  minimum  that  the  different 
moments  are  no  longer  absolutely  isolated.  For  the 
idea  of  anything  as  present  means  nothing  except  in 
contrast  with  the  idea  of  that  thing  as  past,  and  also 
future.  If  you  were  ignorant  of  all  beside  the  present 
you  could  never  possibly  state  what  you  are  now  doing. 
For  what  you  are  now  doing  implies  at  its  lowest  terms 
an  object  toward  which  you  are  moving  as  your  aim 
and  a  situation  from  which  you  have  set  out  to  accom- 
plish that  aim.  If  you  blot  out  these  past  and  future 
elements  of  contrast  you  will  find  that  what  you  are  now 
doing  is  something  of  which  you  can  form  no  idea  what- 
ever. And  so,  of  any  purely  mechanical  fact  we  may 

and  indeed  must  conceive,  our  material  world  as  a  system.  But  this 
systematic  character  is  for  you  and  me  who  think  about  it  and  not  for 
the  things  themselves.  The  more  we  undertake  to  disentangle  the  world 
from  our  mode  of  conceiving  it  the  more  it  assumes  the  character  of  a 
mere  multitude  of  independent  and  isolated  things,  such  as  the  physical 
atoms.  You  may  object  that  even  this  bare  thing  implies  unity,  con^ 
trast,  and  internal  distinction.  If  so,  this  means  to  me  only  that  the 
world  cannot  finally  be  disentangled  from  ourselves.  In  the  meantime 
we  are  endeavoring  to  do  this,  and  so  far  our  distinction  holds  good, 
namely,  that  so  far  as  the  object  of  our  thought  is  conceived  as  an  idea 
it  must  be  conceived  as  both  identical  with  and  diverse  from  other  ideas, 
while  so  far  as  it  is  conceived  as  an  unconscious,  mechanical  thing  it  must 
be  conceived  as  independent  of  other  things. 


Consciousness  61 

say  that  it  is  what  it  now  is.    And  it  is  what  it  now  is 
no  matter  what  it  has  been  or  will  be.     In  a  word,  no 
temporal  moment  of  its  being  can  penetrate  any  other.    J 
A  mechanical  fact  is  a  finally  hard,  solid,  opaque,  and  ' 
unyielding  fact.     But  of  any  conscious  fact,  of  any  idea, 
we  must  say  that  the  ideas  of  successive  moments  are 
bound  to  interpenetrate  if  the  idea  of  any  one  moment 
is  to  have  any  meaning. 

§  39.  From  these  considerations  I  trust  it  may  be 
clear  how  that  apparently  vague  and  meaningless  defini-|  £,n, 
tion  of  consciousness  as  unity  in  diversity,  or  diversity 
in  unity,  expresses  in  reality  the  most  fundamental  and 
significant  difference  between  the  world  of  consciousness 
and  the  world  in  space  and  time.  And  now  we  may  see 
how  that  which  is  for  common  sense  a  stumbling  block 
and  for  science  foolishness  may  be  for  us  the  wisdom 
of  God.  For  what  is  most  impossible  for  mechanical 
objects  in  space  and  time,  namely,  to  be  both  one  and 
many,  both  here  and  there,  both  now  and  then,  —  just 
that  is  for  consciousness  its  truest  and  most  essential  •  ' 
feature.  Time,  as  commonly  conceived  (not  necessarily  ' 
as  conceived  by  mathematical  theory)  is  a  series  of  dis-j  &U 
crete  "points,"  each  of  which  lies  outside  of  the  others. 
JThe  present  moment  is  therefore  a  point  without  dura- 
men, that  is  to  say,  absolutely  isolated  from  the  past 
JancT  future.  So  of  space;  "there"  is  absolutely  ex- 
cluded from  "here."  But  not  so  the  idea  of  a  thing  in 
space.  This  is  obliged  to  be  both  here  and  there,  if 
it  is  to  mean  either.  And  the  same  relation  holds,  even 
more  significantly,  of  the  idea  of  time.  The  usual 
empirical  psychology,  treating  the  mind  as  a  material 
thing,  divides  our  consciousness  into  a  series  of  succes- 
sive moments  corresponding  to  the  points  of  mechanical 
time.  But  as  James  has  pointed  out,  the  "specious 


M 


V 


62  The  Conscious  Individual 

present,"  (the  real  present,  he  should  have  said)  has 
always  a  sensible  duration.  It  includes  a  past,  present, 
and  future  within  itself;  and  on  lower  terms  than  these 
we  can  be  sensible  of  no  time  whatever.  But  the  same 
is  true,  still  more  significantly,  of  moments  more  widely 
apart.  I  remember  what  happened  yesterday,  or  last 
year,  or  perhaps  thirty  years  ago.  The  empirical  psy- 
chology tells  me  that  I  have  now  only  a  representa- 
tive memory-image  of  that  former  event.  But  for  the 
man  who  is  remembering  this  is  nonsense.  What  I 
remember  is  not  an  image  of  that  event,  but  the  event 
itself,  and  not  as  represented  now,  but  as  actually  occur- 
ring then.  And  so  far  as  I  remember  distinctly  I  am  in- 
deed not  merely  remembering,  but  literally  living  once 
more  there  and  then  as  well  as  here  and  now.  For 
physical  science  this  is  a  mere  paradox;  for  conscious- 
ness it  is  the  truest  statement  of  fact. 

§  40.  But  to  come  to  a  more  concrete  statement  of 
the  case,  each  of  us  exists,  let  us  say,  in  a  world  of  many 
diverse  features  and  many  diverse  things,  some  of  which 
are  before  us  simultaneously,  others  in  succession.  At 
any  moment  each  of  these  may  be  assumed  to  produce 
upon  us  its  corresponding  impression,  —  for  no  doubt  the 
mere  presence  of  an  object  before  the  eye  must  be  con- 
ceived to  produce  some  change  in  the  eye,  if  not  also  in 
the  brain.  The  empirical  psychology  translates  these 
impressions  into  correspondingly  separate  and  discrete 
mental  states.  But  not  so  for  you,  of  whom  the  states 
are  supposed  to  be.  Assume  that  you  are  now  conscious 
of  some  object,  say  a  particular  chair  in  this  room;  you 
are  certainly  conscious  of  more.  For  except  as  your 
mental  state  which  means  the  chair  includes  something 
else  which  you  do  not  mean,  it  cannot  even  mean  the 
chair;  in  a  word,  if  you  are  conscious  of  the  chair  alone, 


Consciousness  63 

you  are  not  really  conscious  at  all.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  you  are  very  distinctly  conscious  of  the  chair,  as  most 
explicitly  this  chair,  and  not  that,  nor  that  other,  and 
certainly  not  the  door  nor  the  window,  or  what  not, 
then  your  present  consciousness  of  the  chair  includes 
each  and  all  of  those  other  objects  which  you  explicitly 
exclude  from  your  meaning.  And  further,  if  you  have 
an  idea  of  this  present  situation,  as  uniquely  present,  of 
which  no  other  could  be  an  exact  duplicate,  then,  again, 
if  your  consciousness  of  the  present  is  distinct  and  ex- 
plicit it  must  include  all  other  situations  in  which  you 
have  been  or  may  expect  to  be.  But  at  least  some  other 
situations  must  be  included  if  you  are  to  be  conscious 
of  the  present  at  all.  And  so  once  more,  while  the  things 
that  you  know  are  here  or  there,  now  or  then,  your  know- 
ing of  them  must  ever  be  both. 

§  41.  But  our  consciousness  is  not  a  bare  idea  of  an 
object;  every  idea  is  also  an  aim  and  an  ideal.  We  do 
not  merely  know;  every  knowing  is  at  the  same  time 
an  act  of  will  and  purpose.  I  have  so  far  used  the 
language  of  mere  knowing  because  for  our  special  pur- 
pose it  was  easier.  But  now  it  will  be  clear,  I  hope,  that 
what  has  been  asserted  simply  of  ideas  is  true  without 
qualification  of  the  concrete  conscious  life.  And  in 
passing  to  this  broader  view  I  trust  I  am  beginning  to 
make  clear,  to  bring  above  the  horizon,  so  to  speak,  the 
meaning  of  all  this  analysis  for  our  conception  of  con- 
scious jndividuajity.  For  nothing  is  more  deeply  in- 
volved  in  the  question  of  your  personality  than  the 
possibility  of  your  being  one  and  the  same  person  in  the 
many  acts  of  your  life.  Now,  for  the  empirical  psy- 
chology, you  are  not  one  but  many.  In  resolving  your 
knowledge  into  a  number  of  separate  ideas,  it  also 
resolves  your  will,  or  activity,  into  a  number  of  separated 


64  The  Conscious  Individual 

impulses,  related  only  as  coexistent  or  successive  in  an 
order  of  time.  In  other  words,  you,  the  person,  are  a 
bundle  of  instincts,  each  of  which  in  last  analysis  is  a 
neural  reflex,  a  predetermined  arrangement  of  the  ner- 
vous system  by  which  you  respond  to  each  specific 
object,  or  stimulus,  with  a  specific  reaction,  —  just, 
indeed,  as  the  type-writer  responds  with  a  specific  letter 
for  each  key  touched.  But  in  the  light  of  our  previous 
analysis  you  will  see  that  such  isolated  responses  are  all 
the  world  different  from  the  aims  of  a  conscious  agent. 
The  type-writer  responds  with  a  given  letter  because  the 
mechanism  for  writing  that  letter  is  an  independent  me- 
chanical fact.  In  writing  that  letter  your  type-writer 
knows  nothing  and  cares  nothing  about  the  other 
letters  to  be  written,  and  it  will  misspell  your  word  as 
cheerfully  as  it  will  spell  the  word  correctly.  But  no 
conscious  response  to  a  stimulus  can  be  thus  independent, 
—  or,  if  so,  the  response  is  not  conscious.  Suppose  that 
you  are  so  constructed  that  an  invitation  to  a  good  dinner 
prompts  you  immediately  to  accept.  If  the  stimulus 
is  so  overwhelming  that  it  crowds  out  everything  else 
and  makes  you  forget  all  your  other  plans  and  engage- 
ments, then  I  say  that  your  acceptance  of  the  invitation 
is  in  no  sense  a  conscious  act.  You  are  not  even  con- 
scious of  the  promised  dinner.  For  if  you  have  forgotten 
everything  else  you  have  also  forgotten  that,  and  you 
are  in  the  position  of  one  hypnotized,  or  of  one  whom 
a  stunning  piece  of  good  fortune  has  reduced  to  insen- 
sibility. 

§  42.  At  its  lowest  terms,  then,  a  conscious  aim  can 
never  be  exclusive.  Like  the  idea,  it  is  both  itself  and 
at  the  same  time  includes  aims  other  than  itself.  It  is 
an  aim  always  to  do  this  with  reference  to  that.  Not, 
however,  for  the  sake  of  that.  For  here  we  have  to  note 


Consciousness  65 

what  I  conceive  to  be  perhaps  the  most  significant 
implication  of  our  conception  of  consciousness.  The  &M 
revolt  against  the  depersonalizing  tendencies  of  the 
empirical  psychology  is  commonly  expressed  in  the 
assertion  that  consciousness  is  selective.  By  this  it  is 
meant  that  as  conscious  beings  we  are  able  to  take  an 
all-at-once  view  of  our  several  aims  and  by  comparison 
to  give  the  better  the  right  of  way  over  the  worse. 
And  thus,  by  virtue  of  our  consciousness,  we  are  enabled 
to  assert  ourselves  in  a  personal  choice,  and  the  impulse 
of  the  present  moment  is  no  longer  absolutely  deter- 
mining. Now  I  hold  that  consciousness  is  indeed  selec- 
tive. And  we  shall  see  presently  that  it  is  the  more  \ 
conscious  life  which  succeeds  in  bringing  to  fruition  the 
greater  number  of  its  several  aims.  But  the  function  of 
a  conscious  activity  is  not  merely  to  select  one  aim  to  the 
exclusion  of  another,  or  to  do  one  thing  merely  for  the 
sake  of  another.  If  our  definition  is  to  be  taken  lit- 
erally such  exclusiveness,  or  even  preference,  of  aims 
would  partake  of  the  nature  of  an  unconscious,  mechani- 
cal movement,  in  which  one  object  is  displaced,  or  more 
or  less  displaced,  in  the  attainment  of  another.  The 
characteristically  conscious  selection,  however,  would  be, 
not  the  selection  of  one  of  your  aims  by  rejection  of 
another,  but  the  selection  of  that  act  which  would  com- 
pletely realize  all  of  your  aims  as  opposed  to  any  act 
by  which  any  of  them  would  be  left  even  partially 
unrealized. 

Now  I  hold  that  our  definition  is  to  be  taken  in  its 
strictest  and  most  literal  sense.  Only  as  thus  inter- 
preted does  it  give  us  the  genuine  differentia  of  a 
conscious  act.  We  have  seen  that  mechanical  facts 
are  mutually  exclusive  in  space  and  time.  The  same 
characteristic  belongs  to  a  mechanical  act.  A  purely 
5 


66  The  Conscious  Individual 

mechanical  movement  can  grasp,  or  possess,  only  one, 
and  that  the  present,  object  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
others.  But  it  is  the  characteristic  of  conscious  facts 
to  be  mutually  wclusive,  to  be  genuinely  many  at  the 
same  time  that  they  are  genuinely  one.  To  act  con- 
sciously is  therefore  to  do  this  with  reference  to  that; 
yet  not  to  do  this  for  the  sake  of  that,  not  to  sacrifice 
this  aim  for  that,  not  to  give  that  the  right  of  way  over 
this;  but  to  choose  that  course  of  action  which  will 
attain  both.  It  is  just  this  possibility  of  inclusive  selec- 
tion that  distinguishes  the  conscious  act;  it  is  just  this 
that  makes  thinking  worth  while;  and  so  far  as  any 
exclusiveness  remains  the  act  is  not  yet  perfectly  con- 
scious. 

Suppose  that  you  receive  an  invitation  to  dinner. 
On  first  thought  you  say,  "Alas!  I  can't  go.  I  have 
something  else  to  do."  But  upon  second  and  more 
reflective  thought  you  ask  whether  you  cannot  so  arrange 
your  program  as  to  do  both.  Suppose  you  succeed. 
Your  consequent  decision  to  accept  now  embodies  just 
the  sort  of  aim  which  is  characteristic  of  a  conscious 
agent.  That  is  to  say,  it  includes  and  fulfils  two  aims 
which,  except  for  your  act  of  reflection,  would  have  been 
mutually  incompatible  and  exclusive.  Of  course  you 
may  fail.  The  problem  of  reconciling  the  two  ends  may 
be  too  difficult  for  solution  within  your  present  oppor- 
tunities for  reflection;  it  may  even  refuse  to  yield  to 
further  subsequent  reflection.  But  this  means  only 
that  your  grasp  of  the  situation  is  incomplete,  not 
that  the  two  aims  are  shown  to  be  absolutely  self-con- 
tradictory. For  that  would  imply  perfect  clearness  of 
vision,  and  —  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  —  perfect 
control;  for  simply  to  understand  what  a  thing  will  do 
or  will  not  do  is  to  find  a  way  of  making  it  do  what  you 


Consciousness  67 

want.  But  the  situation  which  now  confronts  you  is  a 
matter  of  opaque  fact  which  you  can  neither  control 
nor  fully  understand,  and  in  which  it  remains  always 
possible  that  a  clearer  insight  into  the  nature  of  the 
conditions  and  a  more  perfect  self-consciousness  with 
regard  to  the  exact  meaning  of  your  aims  would  solve 
the  problem  and  realize  both  your  aims  with  perfect 
individual  completeness. 

The  whole  matter  may  then  be  formulated  as  follows: 
Mechanically  determined  actions  may  be,  and  except 
by  chance  will  be,  absolutely  exclusive.  If,  for  example, 
you  leave  the  attainment  of  ends  A  and  B  to  the  mercy 
of  unregulated  impulse,  or  habit,  it  will  be  the  merest 
good  luck  if  the  attainment  of  one  does  not  put  the 
other  absolutely  out  of  the  question.  If,  however,  your 
action  be  in  the  slightest  degree  conscious  the  incom- 
patibility of  the  two  ends  will  be  so  far  reduced.  But 
you  will  not  be  fully  conscious,  you  will  not  finally  know 
what  you  are  doing,  until  your  conduct  is  such  as  to 
realize  both  ends,  each  with  individual  completeness,  all 
at  once. 

§  43.  Nor,  until  you  do  this,  will  you  be  in  the  final  I  * 
sense  an  individual  person.  For  the  meaning  of  all  this 
is  that  it  is  your  consciousness  that  makes  you  an  indi- 
vidual person,  that  and  nothing  else.  It  may  be  neces-j  , 
sary  to  have  an  individual  body,  separated  from  other 
bodies,  and  a  continuous  organic  life;  but  these  are  mere 
adjuncts  of  personality.  They  might  be  the  same  body 
and  the  same  life,  but  never,  merely  as  such,  the  same 
person,  nor  in  the  final  sense  the  same.  For  they  would 
be  the  same  only  for  others,  for  those  who  might  know 
them;  in  themselves,  however,  so  many  temporally  and 
spatially  isolated  mechanical  facts.  The  only  manifold 
that  can  be  in  itself  the  same  is  a  conscious  manifold, : 


68  The  Conscious  Individual 

—  a  self-conscious  manifold.  As  a  physical  being  you 
may  be  here  or  there,  yesterday  or  today,  but  here, 
there,  yesterday,  and  today  are  so  many  isolated  facts. 
As  a  conscious  being  you  are  necessarily  both  here  and 
there,  both  yesterday  and  today.  You  are  therefore 
literally  the  same,  and  the  same  in  the  only  sense  in 
which  any  manifold  of  terms  and  aspects  can  ever  be 
really  the  same,  —  the  same  individual  person. 

§  44.  But  the  immediate  purpose  of  this  definition 
of  consciousness  is  to  arrive  at  some  clear  conception 
of  what  is  meant  by  the  several  degrees  of  consciousness. 
We  have  seen  that  to  fail  in  any  degree  to  realize  your 
several  ends  is  to  be  so  far  not  fully  conscious  and  not 
in  the  full  sense  a  person.  But,  now,  what  would  it 
mean  to  be  a  conscious  person  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
phrase?  The  answer,  I  fear,  will  be  staggering.  Sup- 
pose that  our  coming  here  today  is  for  each  of  us  a  fully 
conscious  act.  Then  I  say  that  it  must  be  an  act  which 
not  only  satisfies,  and  fully  satisfies,  our  purposes  in 
coming  here  now,  but  at  the  same  time  satisfies,  and  fully 
satisfies,  every  other  purpose  of  our  present  lives.  In 
other  words,  the  act  of  coming  here  now  must  express 
a  decision  which  embodies  all  our  present  interests.  If 
any  side  of  our  nature,  any  possible  want,  has  been  for- 
gotten or  disregarded,  our  act  is  so  far  lacking  in  con- 
sciousness; so  far  we  do  not  in  the  full  sense  know  what 
we  are  doing.  But  this  is  not  all.  If  the  act  is  to  be 
fully  conscious  it  must  embody,  not  only  all  of  our 
present  purposes,  but  all  the  purposes  of  the  past  and  all 
of  our  possible  purposes  of  the  future.  In  a  word,  the 
fully  conscious  act  is  that  which  embodies  in  the  choice 
of  that  moment  all  the  issues  of  one's  life;  and  the  fully 
conscious  life  is  that  which  is  illumined  at  every  moment 
by  a  perfectly  clear  vision  of  the  purposes  of  that  life 


Consciousness  69 

as  a  whole.  On  this  basis  of  definition  it  is  obvious  that 
none  of  us  is  ever  fully  conscious.  Nay,  it  is  clear  that 
we  must  be  for  the  most  part  woefully  blind  and  uncon- 
scious. But  this  is  precisely  the  point  which  my  defini- 
tion is  intended  to  reach.  Human  consciousness  is  all 
the  world  removed  from  that  of  the  lower  animals;  yet 
it  is  time  that  we  rouse  ourselves  from  our  "dogmatic 
slumber"  in  the  notion  that  as  human  beings  we  are 
conscious  once  for  all.  For  consciousness,  as  we  shall 
now  see,  forms  an  infinitely  graduated  and  indefinitely 
extended  scale.  Even  among  human  beings  there  are 
enormous  differences  in  the  degree  to  which  life  is  con- 
sciously lived;  and  from  any  absolute  standpoint,  or 
even  from  the  maximum  conceivable  from  our  present 
point  of  view,  the  unconsciousness  of  human  life  as  a 
whole  is  as  conspicuous  and  significant  a  feature  as  the 
consciousness  itself.  We  shall  see  that  this  unconscious- 
ness has  an  important  bearing  upon  the  conception  of 
the  individual  and  the  theory  of  social  relations. 


yo  The  Conscious  Individual 


II  THE  DEGREES  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

One  of  the  conspicuous  results  of  evolutionary  ways 
of  thinking  has  been  the  gradual  but  rapid  disintegration 
of  absolute  distinctions.  The  older  way  of  thinking, 
which  is  still  the  way  for  the  majority  of  men,  was 
expressed  in  the  law  of  excluded  middle.  A  must  be 
either  B  or  not-B.  I  am  either  a  conscious  being  or 
an  unconscious  being.  I  either  know  or  I  do  not  know; 
there  is  no  middle  ground.  But  the  theory  of  evolution 
has  taught  us  to  look  for  a  middle  ground  everywhere, 
even  between  knowing  and  not-knowing.  Nevertheless, 
the  absolute  dies  hard.  It  retreats,  indeed;  it  accepts 
a  middle  term;  but  then  it  proceeds  to  set  up  an  abso- 
lute and  ungraded  distinction  between  its  middle  and 
end-terms.  So,  in  the  matter  of  consciousness,  we  have 
a  distinction  between  consciousness  and  self-conscious- 
ness, or  rather,  the  graded  series  of  unconsciousness,  sub- 
consciousness,  consciousness  and  self-consciousness,  each 
of  which  is  supposed  to  represent  an  absolutely  distinct 
stage.  It  is  one  thing  to  know,  and  a  very  different 
thing  to  know  that  you  know.  It  is  one  thing  simply  to 
be  aware  —  to  have  a  bare  idea,  or  sense-impression, 
of  an  object,  and  quite  another  thing  to  subject  your 
idea  to  reflective  and  critical  analysis.  The  lower  ani- 
mals are  conscious,  but  only  man  is  self-conscious. 

§  45.  I  may  begin,  then,  by  observing  that  our  con- 
ception of  consciousness  furnishes  no  basis  for  a  distinc- 
tion between  consciousness  and  self-consciousness  except 
as  a  distinction  of  degree.  And  for  this  important  point, 
as  for  some  others,  I  have  no  room  for  a  special  argu- 
ment, but  must  leave  it  to  be  justified  here  and  there 
in  the  course  of  the  argument  as  a  whole.  For  us  the 


Degrees  of  Consciousness  71 

distinction  of  consciousness  and  self-consciousness  marks 
the  difference  between  any  higher  term  and  any  lower 
at  any  point  in  the  scale.  There  can  be  no  conscious- 
ness which  is  not  also  self-conscious  in  its  own  degree. 
Indeed,  this  element  of  selfhood  is  for  us  just  that  essen- 
tial feature  of  consciousness  whose  absence  character- 
izes the  distinctively  mechanical  fact.  For  if  you  look 
more  closely  at  the  consciousness  which  is  assumed  not 
to  be  self-conscious  you  will  recognize  those  substantive 
and  isolated  "mental  states,"  to  which  I  referred  a 
while  ago,  and  which,  in  their  lack  of  further  reference 
and  meaning,  are  simply  not  conscious  at  all.  I  say, 
then,  that  awareness  of  anything  involves  so  far,  how- 
ever vaguely,  a  corresponding  awareness  of  self.  For 
the  merest  awareness,  to  be  aware  of  anything  whatever,!  ' 
must  be  aware  of  this  and  that,  and  of  this  as  different1' 
from  that.  Now  any  awareness  of  difference  implies 
a  comparison  from  a  certain  point  of  view,  which  for 
the  present  represents  yourself.  This  point  of  view 
defines  the  nature  of  the  difference  of  which  you  are 
aware.  And  you  are  aware  of  the  nature  of  the  dif- 
ference, —  in  the  degree,  of  course,  of  your  awareness  of 
the  difference  itself.  If  you  have  no  awareness  of  the 
nature  of  the  difference,  you  are  aware  of  no  difference; 
then,  indeed,  of  nothing  whatever.  But  we  shall  see 
these  relations  illustrated  in  what  is  to  come. 

§  46.  Keeping  in  mind,  then,  our  conception  of  con- 
sciousness, let  us  now  ask  what  we  mean  by  saying  that 
a  given  act  of  consciousness  is  "more  conscious"  than 
another.  We  might  return  to  our  original  illustration 
of  the  billiard-balls,  but  a  better  illustration  is  offered 
in  the  facts  of  color-blindness.  For  if  it  means  anything 
at  all  to  be  more  conscious,  the  person  of  normal  vision 
must  surely  be  more  conscious  of  the  colors  of  the  world 


72  The  Conscious  Individual 

than  his  color-blind  neighbor.  Now,  in  the  matter  of 
color-blind  vision,  we  may  conveniently  assume,  with 
most  color-theory  of  today,  that  the  colors  of  the  normal 
eye  are  mixtures  in  various  proportions  of  the  so-called 
primary  colors,  red,  yellow,  green,  and  blue.  But  for 
the  most  common  type  of  color-blind  eye  it  seems  that 
the  entire  range  of  color-distinction  can  be  covered  by 
mixtures  of  blue  and  yellow  only,  —  that  is  to  say,  the 
addition  of  red  and  green  makes  no  difference.  It  is 
therefore  common  to  say  that  while  the  normal  eye  per- 
ceives red,  green,  blue,  and  yellow,  the  color-blind  eye 
perceives  only  blue  and  yellow. 

But,  now,  what  is  the  meaning  of  "blue"  for  the 
color-blind  eye?  It  is  surely  not  the  blue  of  your  nor- 
mal eye;  for  your  "blue"  is  known  as  different,  not 
merely  from  some  other  color  —  for  convenience,  call 
it  "yellow"  —  but  from  three  other  colors,  distinguished 
from  each  other  as  yellow,  green,  and  red.  For  this 
reason  I  say  that  your  blue  means  more,  and  therefore 
that  in  perceiving  blue  you  are  conscious  of  more  than 
the  color-blind  man  and  at  the  same  time  more  conscious. 
If  you  lived  in  a  world  where  "blue"  marked  a  distinc- 
tion from  only  one  other  (largely  only  "some  other") 
color,  then,  although  your  "blue"  would  be  spatially 
very  pervasive,  and  would  cover  all  that  is  now  covered 
by  blue  and  green,  it  would  mean  very  little  and  have, 
as  an  idea,  very  little  content.  For  in  that  world  it 
would  have  of  itself  just  one  rather  indefinite  character, 
i.e.,  as  a  "cold"  color  rather  than  a  "warm."  In  your 
normal  world  it  has  at  least  three  distinct  characters, 
due  to  its  contrast,  individually,  with  yellow,  green, 
and  red.  It  is  thus  a  richer  and  fuller  object;  your  per- 
ception of  it  expresses  a  richer  and  fuller  distinction; 
and  in  perceiving  it  you  are  both  conscious  of  more,  and 
more  conscious. 


Degrees  of  Consciousness  73 

This,  you  will  see,  is  precisely  the  conception  of  a 
higher  degree  of  consciousness  which  our  general  defini- 
tion of  consciousness  would  lead  us  to  expect.  For  if 
consciousness  is  characterized  by  the  relation  of  many 
in  one,  the  higher  degree  of  consciousness  should  be  a  case 
simply  of  more  in  one,  —  a  greater  and  more  varied  mul- 
tiplicity which  is  at  the  same  time  a  richer  and  more 
complex  unity.  Assume  once  more  that  the  billiard- 
ball  of  our  illustration  begins  to  know  itself.  At  the 
lowest  terms  its  idea  of  itself  must  include  something 
other  than  itself.  But  the  degree  of  meaning  of  this 
idea  will  then  depend  upon  the  variety  and  extent  of 
those  others  which  are  thus  embraced.  For  each  new 
inclusion  there  is  a  fresh  case  of  comparison  and  con- 
trast, by  virtue  of  which  the  idea  acquires  a  new  element 
of  meaning  and  becomes  a  richer  and  more  significant 
idea.  And  therefore,  according  to  its  range  of  com- 
parison will  the  idea  express  much  or  little;  and  what  it 
expresses  is  the  measure  of  its  degree  of  consciousness. 

§  47.  This  explains  what  we  mean  in  common  sense 
by  the  clearness  of  an  idea.  For  common  sense  a  more 
intensive  consciousness  of  an  object  is  said  to  be  clearer 
and  more  distinct.  But  what  is  the  meaning  of  "clear- 
ness" as  applied  to  ideas?  For  the  average  empirical 
psychology  the  clearness  of  an  idea  is  simply  a  crude 
metaphor,  derived,  say,  from  the  clearness  of  a  window- 
pane.  That  is  to  say,  clearness  belongs  to  ideas  just 
as  it  does  to  window-panes,  as  a  natural  property  not  to 
be  further  analyzed.  Yet  a  moment's  reflection  should 
show  that  the  clearness  of  the  idea  (if  not  also  of 
the  window-pane)  involves  certain  specific  and  easily 
definable  relations.  An  idea  is  clear  by  virtue  of  its 
internal  distinctness.  And  the  measure  of  its  distinct- 1 
ness  is  the  number  of  distinctions  which  it  expresses, ' 


74  The  Conscious  Individual 

not  successively,  or  serially,  in  mere  logical  order,  but 
all  at  once  in  a  single  moment  of  thought.  Thus  an 
idea  of  blue  has  some  clearness  when  it  means  a  cold 
rather  than  a  warm  color;  it  is  clearer  when  it  means 
specifically  not  yellow,  nor  red,  nor  green;  and  it  is 
still  clearer  when  blue  is  finally  located  at  a  given  point 
on  the  solar  spectrum  and  is  thus  distinguished  from 
every  other  variety  of  hue.  In  this  process  of  clarifica- 
tion the  color,  the  blue  itself,  has  been  confined  within 
an  ever  narrower  range.  But  the  idea  of  blue  has 
acquired  an  ever  more  inclusive,  richer,  and  more  indi- 
vidualized meaning. 

§  48.  We  come,  then,  to  the  meaning  of  these  grades 
of  consciousness  for  concrete  mental  life.  Where  mental 
life  begins,  if  it  anywhere  begins,  it  is  quite  impossible 
to  say.  The  earth-worm  is  apt  to  be  the  center  of  dis- 
cussion in  fixing  the  lower  limit  of  consciousness.  Let 
us  assume,  then,  that  the  earth-worm  is  conscious. 
How  it  would  seem  to  be  an  earth-worm  we  may  not 
dare  to  guess.  So  much,  however,  we  must  affirm:  if 
he  is  conscious  of  anything  his  consciousness  of  any 
moment  covers  more  than  just  that  point  in  space  and 
time.  If  he  even  knows  himself  as  creeping  —  and  less 
he  could  hardly  know  —  he  is  aware,  however  vaguely, 
of  a  difference  between  a  now  and  a  then,  a  here  and  a 
there,  though  a  then  of  two  minutes  ago  or  a  there  of 
two  feet  away  may  be  quite  beyond  his  present  range 
of  comparison. 

Between  the  worm  and  our  intelligent  friend,  the  dog, 
the  difference  of  range  of  comparison  must  be  very  great. 
Yet  little  as  compared  with  the  difference  between  the 
dog  and  any  normal  man.  As  you  sit  by  the  fire 
with  your  dog  on  the  hearth-rug  before  you,  no  doubt 
the  dog  looks  as  thoughtful  as  yourself;  and  a  casual 


Degrees  of  Consciousness  7£ 

observer  might  even  credit  him  with  a  greater  depth  of 
reflection.  Yet  compare  the  probable  reach  of  the  two 
minds.  Not  forgetting  where  you  now  are,  your  mind 
turns,  let  us  say,  to  events  long  past  and  at  the  same 
time  lays  plans  involving  to  some  degree  the  considera- 
tion of  persons  and  places  far  away,  yet  linked  to  your 
present  situation  by  a  complex  network  of  economic 
and  personal  implications.  Does  the  dog  lay  plans? 
Does  he  remember  his  dinner  of  yesterday?  Does  he 
really  anticipate  in  thought  his  dinner  of  today?  And 
when  he  barks  at  the  railway-train  has  he  any  notion 
of  what  he  is  barking  at?  Does  he  know,  indeed,  that 
there  is  a  world  beyond  the  range  of  his  daily  experi- 
ence? Does  he  even  grasp  his  world  of  today  and  yester- 
day as  one  world?  These  questions,  I  suppose,  belong 
to  the  animal  psychologist.  Yet  it  requires  no  animal 
psychologist  to  tell  us  that  the  range  of  the  dog's  present 
thought  must  be  extremely  limited,  whatever  may  be  the 
possibility  of  recall  in  the  presence  of  an  associative  cue. 
And  therefore,  in  spite  of  his  judicial  demeanor  and  the 
liveliness  of  his  behavior  at  certain  times,  we  must 
conclude  that  the  present  object  has  for  him  a  very 
limited  significance,  and  that  his  mind  is  dull  and  vacant 
as  compared  with  the  least  intensive  moments  of  our 
own  waking  life. 

§  49.  Yet  scarcely  less  significant  is  the  difference  of 
range  between  man  and  man.  There  are,  as  James  says, 
"the  tramp  who  lives  from  hour  to  hour;  the  bohemian 
whose  engagements  are  from  day  to  day;  the  bachelor 
who  builds  but  for  a  single  life;  the  father  who  acts  for 
another  generation;  and  finally  the  philosopher  and 
saint  whose  cares  are  for  humanity  and  eternity." 
But  although  "the  man  whose  determinations  are 
swayed  by  reference  to  most  distant  ends  has  in  all  ages 


76  The  Conscious  Individual 

been  held  to  possess  the  highest  intelligence,"  he  has  not 
always  been  credited  with  the  most  intensive  conscious- 
ness; indeed,  it  is  popularly  supposed  that  the  very 
breadth  of  his  view  renders  him  incapable  of  grasping 
the  world  immediately  before  him.  The  philosopher  in 
particular  is  supposed  to  be  in  a  very  bad  way,  and  as 
compared  with  the  commercial  traveller  to  be  only  half 
awake.  It  is  therefore  to  be  expected  that  I  shall 
declare  this  to  be  the  expression  of  a  vulgar  and  super- 
ficial point  of  view.  If  by  "breadth  of  view"  you  mean 
a  merely  dispersive  view,  which  considers  successively 
all  the  various  furnishings  of  heaven  and  earth,  with  no 
attempt  to  grasp  them  coherently,  all  at  once,  then 
breadth  of  view  may  very  well  be  incompatible  with 
present  intensity  of  consciousness.  Much  of  the  so- 
called  breadth  of  view  is  of  this  particular  type;  and 
really  it  is  just  such  breadth  of  view  that  characterizes 
the  mental  attitude  of  the  usual  commercial  traveller. 
But  the  breadth  of  view  called  for  by  our  definition  is 
not  the  dispersive  view,  not  many  separated  views  of 
the  many  things,  but  a  grasp  of  the  many  in  the  present 
moment  of  thought,  all  at  once.  And  when  you  keep 
this  firmly  in  mind,  it  will  be  clear,  I  think,  that  the  man 
who  views  the  present  from  the  wider  outlook,  and  for 
whom  the  present  has  a  greater  and  remoter  range  of 
suggestiveness,  is  not  merely  more  intelligent,  but  more 
intensively  conscious  of  the  object  just  before  him.  Nor 
should  we  be  misled  by  superficial  appearances.  The 
philosopher  who  lives  for  eternity  and  the  tramp  who 
lives  from  hour  to  hour  may  be  similarly  quiescent  in 
outward  behavior.  The  bustling  activity  of  the  con- 
ventional commercial  traveller  is  in  marked  contrast  to 
both.  Yet  the  squirrel  is  perhaps  a  greater  "hustler" 
than  he.  The  truth  is  that  "life,"  as  a  conscious  process, 


Degrees  of  Consciousness  77 

is  not  a  question  of  the  amount  of  mechanical  energy 
expended,  but  of  the  meaning  of  the  ends  realized.  And 
likewise  the  intensity  of  consciousness  with  which  the 
life  is  lived.  The  man  who  is  most  " alive"  to  the  world 
before  him  is  the  man  for  whom  the  present  and  the 
present  act  have  the  most  extended  significance. 

And  therefore  we  must  say  that,  even  within  the  range 
of  normal  human  life,  there  is  an  enormous  difference 
in  the  degree  to  which  life  is  consciously  lived.  The 
difference  between  the  man  of  culture,  whose  reading 
and  study  enable  him  to  see  the  present  in  the  light  of 
other  times  and  places,  and  the  peasant  or  day-laborer, 
who  lives  mainly  in  the  world  of  today,  is  not  merely  a 
difference  of  intelligence.  The  difference  of  intelligence 
is  in  last  analysis  a  difference  of  intensive  clearness  in 
the  present  conscious  life.  We  who  have  enjoyed  the 
advantages  of  education,  and  whose  duties  in  life  involve 
a  constant  succession  of  fresh  responsibilities,  may  often 
wonder  how  the  monotonous  round  of  unskilled  and 
irresponsible  hand-labor  can  possibly  be  endurable. 
The  answer  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  life  of 
those  who  pursue  such  occupations  is  not  a  very  conscious 
life.  The  man  who  follows  one  shovelful  of  dirt  with 
another  is  not  thinking  very  clearly  of  what  he  does,  — 
not  much  more  than  the  horse  who  works  by  his  side. 
Working  here  and  there  for  so  much  a  day,  he  pays  very 
little  attention  to  the  ends  which  his  work  is  accomplish- 
ing. And  having  no  thought  of  a  steady  occupation 
or  accumulated  resources,  he  is  not  much  concerned  with 
plans  for  himself.  He  is  therefore  very  little  alive  to 
the  world  just  before  him,  as  compared  with  the  man 
for  whom  each  day  is  but  a  step  in  a  carefully  planned 
career. 

§  50.   When  all  is  said,  however,  it  remains  true  that, 


78  The  Conscious  Individual 

by  the  side  of  the  fully  conscious  life,  no  human  being 
can  be  said  to  be  very  intensively  conscious.  No  human 
life  ever  approaches  a  grasp  of  itself  as  a  whole  in  a 
single  act  of  thought.  No  philosopher  seeking  to  com- 
prehend the  world  as  a  whole  ever  comprehends  more 
than  a  small  portion  in  a  single  point  of  view.  Hence, 
properly  speaking,  he  never  begins  to  comprehend  the 
world  in  all  its  variety  and  fulness.  I  say  this  in  no 
pessimistic  vein,  —  rather,  perhaps,  in  the  opposite.  It 
may  mean  that  "the  eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard" 
the  good  things  that  are  within  reach  of  us.  But  in  any 
case  it  is  a  fact;  a  fact  which  philosophers  of  all  ages  have 
felt  to  be  significant  for  the  interpretation  of  our  human 
form  of  knowledge,  and  which,  as  I  hope  to  show,  has  a 
direct  bearing  upon  the  theory  of  social  relations.  Even 
the  most  thoughtful  human  mind  works  within  a  narrow 
span  of  attention.  The  things  of  today  are  illumined 
by  the  things  of  yesterday,  and  perhaps  of  last  week, 
but  the  things  of  last  year  have  passed  more  or  less  into 
outer  darkness,  and  the  light  which  they  would  throw 
upon  the  present  is  very  largely  lost.  Our  most  vivid 
records  of  them  never  enable  us  to  see  them  as  we  saw 
them  when  present.  Our  actual  human  consciousness 
is  therefore  a  series  of  relatively  exclusive  "states." 
Only  relatively  exclusive,  to  be  sure;  for  more  or  less 
they  overlap  and  display  a  concatenate  form  of  con- 
tinuity. But  such  continuity  is  still  remote  from  that 
fully  inclusive  unity  which  would  characterize  the  per- 
fectly conscious  life.  And  so,  to  use  Kant's  metaphor, 
we  live  at  each  moment  upon  a  small  island  of  passable 
clearness  surrounded  by  an  ocean  of  vagueness.  Or  to 
change  the  figure,  we  are  like  the  man  who  explores 
a  cavern  of  indefinite  dimensions  with  a  bull's  eye  lan- 
tern. Or  once  more,  and  perhaps  better,  we  are  in  the 


Degrees  of  Consciousness  79 

position  of  the  blind  man  endeavoring  to  form  a  concep- 
tion of  a  large  and  complex  object  by  passing  his  hand 
successively  over  its  parts.  It  is  believed  that  as  a  rule 
the  blind  have  a  very  imperfect  conception  of  the  mean- 
ing of  space.  So,  for  us,  the  world  must  be  a  very  dif- 
ferent thing  from  what  it  would  be  in  the  broad  daylight 
of  a  perfect  and  all-inclusive  consciousness. 


80  The  Conscious  Individual 


III  THE  CONSCIOUS  INDIVIDUAL 

Our  special  investigation  into  the  meaning  of  con- 
sciousness is  not  yet  quite  complete,  for  we  have  still 
to  inquire  into  the  meaning  of  that  very  important 
conception  "the  social  consciousness."  Yet  it  is  time 
that  I  should  begin  to  justify  our  long  detour  through 
the  wilderness  of  metaphysics  by  showing  the  meaning 
of  our  definition  of  consciousness  fot  the  conception  of 
the  individual  person.  I  have  already  pointed  out  that 
it  is  your  consciousness,  and  that  alone,  which  makes  you 
the  same  person,  the  same  yesterday  and  today,  the 
same  in  this  act  and  that.  I  shall  endeavor  now  to 
show,  and  at  the  same  time  to  explain  how  and  why, 
the  measure  of  your  consciousness  is  the  precise 
measure  of  your  individuality.  Here  I  use  the  term 
"individuality"  in  the  idealistic  sense.  The  mechan- 
ical individual  is  after  all  not  an  individual,  but  a 
unit.  But  as  human  beings  we  are  both  mechanical 
bodies  and  conscious  persons.  My  aim  will  be,  then,  to 
show  that  so  far  as  we  are  not  conscious  we  are  nothing 
but  mechanical  bodies,  and  that  our  behavior  is  then 
strictly  a  matter  of  mechanical  law,  but  that  so  far  as 
we  are  conscious  these  mechanical  laws  are  completely 
superseded  in  favor  of  personal  ends.  I  shall  not  attempt 
to  create  the  individual  out  of  nothing,  but  simply  to 
record  the  changes  that  occur  in  any  given  individual 
as  he  becomes  more  or  less  conscious. 

§  51.  In  the  last  section  I  have  undertaken  to  mark 
the  several  grades  of  conscious  human  being  by  the  nor- 
mal or  habitual  range  of  the  present  span  of  attention. 
Suppose,  then,  we  select  for  consideration  one  of  that 
very  common  type  whose  range  of  consideration  rarely, 


The  Conscious  Individual  81 

if  ever,  extends  much  beyond  the  "bull's  eye"  field  of 
his  present  view.  The  wholly  unambitious  day-laborer 
would  best  illustrate  the  type;  yet  for  us  the  chief  sig- 
nificance of  the  type  will  lie  in  the  fact  that  in  its  essen- 
tial attributes  it  covers  all  of  that  great  mass  of  persons, 
representing  all  social  classes,  whose  life  is  bounded  by 
bourgeois  aspirations,  and  who  rarely,  if  ever,  think  for 
themselves;  and  this  means  that  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree  it  covers  every  one  of  us.  Conceive  yourself, 
then,  to  be  one  of  these  typically  unthinking  persons. 
My  first  point  will  be  that  so  far  you  are  not  really  a 
person  at  all,  but  only  a  bundle  of  habits  or  instincts, 
as  defined  by  the  mechanical  theory,  —  and  this  just 
by  virtue  of  the  narrowness  of  your  present  point  of 
view.  For  the  act  of  any  moment  is  now  determined, 
like  that  of  the  locomotive,2  by  the  conditions  imme- 
diately present.  That  is  to  say,  each  present  habit 
stands  by  itself,  like  each  connection  of  key  and  type- 
bar  on  the  type-writer;  and  each  stimulus  produces  its 
appropriate  reaction  —  which  is  determined  by  a  speci- 
fic reflex-arc  in  the  nervous  system  —  without  regard  to 
what  you  have  done  in  the  past  or  expect  to  do  in  the 
future.  If  food  is  placed  before  you,  you  eat.  If  a  glow- 
ing advertisement  strikes  your  eye,  you  buy.  And  when 
the  life-insurance  agent  grows  eloquent  you  take  out  a 
policy.  In  a  word,  you  do  "just  what  any  one  would 
f'o"  who  had  no  personal  reason  for  doing  otherwise. 
That  you  have  no  personal  reason  is  due  to  the  narrow 
range,  as  assumed  by  us,  of  your  present  point  of  view. 
The  present  object  covers  nearly  the  whole  field  of  con- 
sciousness. For  this  reason  it  is  so  far  the  sole  deter- 
minant of  your  act.  Consequently  any  act  will  suffice 
which  satisfies  the  desire  aroused  by  this  object.  It 
2  See  §  38. 


-S-M.  WA  <k  *^ 


82  The  Conscious  Individual 

need  not  be  adjusted  to  satisfy  any  meaning  beyond. 
For  under  the  conditions  it  can  have  no  such  meaning, 
nor  in  the  strict  sense  any  meaning  whatever,  and  there- 
fore no  individuality.  In  the  absence,  then,  of  any  more 
inclusive  consciousness  you  are  not  properly  a  person 
but  only  a  "bundle,"  or  mechanical  aggregate,  of  rela- 
tively independent  habits. 

§  52.  Now  the  second  point.  If  no  personal  reason 
determines  your  act,  what  does  determine  it?  Obvi- 
ously, it  would  seem,  some  impersonal  "law"  of  habit. 
What  you  do,  as  I  have  just  noted,  is  "just  what  any 
one  would  do"  under  the  given  conditions.  In  other 
words,  you  are  not  some  one  in  particular,  but  only 
a  statistical  unit.  Here,  however,  we  may  pause  and 
record  an  important  discovery,  —  nothing  less,  indeed, 
than  the  great  scientific  MAN  of  cold-blooded,  naturalistic 
science.  Who  can  he  be  but  the  man  just  before  us,  — 
the  unconscious  man?  For  who  else  can  be  conceived  to 
express  in  his  behavior  the  operation  of  inflexible  natural 
law?  In  our  First  Lecture  we  saw  that  all  such  laws  pre- 
suppose that  the  men  to  whom  they  apply  are  definitely 
fixed  quantities.  We  may  now  see  that  they  are  also 
presupposed  to  be  unconscious  quantities.  The  cele- 
brated "economic  man,"  so  constructed  that  he  can  buy 
only  in  the  lowest  market  and  sell  only  in  the  highest; 
the  anthropological  man,  dedicated  by  Nature  to  the 
inevitable  perpetuation  of  his  race;  the  sociological  man, 
bound  by  hereditary  instinct  to  identify  himself  with 
his  tribe,  —  of  all  these  and  their  like  it  is  tacitly  assumed 
that  no  personal  meaning,  no  reference  of  the  present  to 
any  other  personal  demand,  will  get  into  the  situation 
to  disturb  the  "natural"  course  of  law.  And  precisely 
this  is  assumed  of  that  moral  individual  of  contemporary 
ethical  thought,  whose  interests  are  claimed  to  be,  by 


The  Conscious  Individual  83 

virtue  of  inherited  instinct,  "naturally"  disinterested 
and  social.  So  far  as  he  exists,  he  is  not  the  conscious 
man,  but  the  man  who  functions  as  the  unconscious 
instrument  of  natural  law.  But  our  present  purpose 
is  not  to  criticize  these  laws  of  human  behavior,  but 
rather  to  show  where  they  are  positively  valid.  I  sup- 
pose that  no  scientific  economist,  or  other  student  of 
human  conduct,  would  affirm  them  to  be  valid  without 
qualification.  A  provision  is  always  made  for  "other 
things  equal."  Our  purpose  is  to  note  that  the  chief  oij^  0  ^ 
these  "other  things"  is  the  absence  of  any  personal 
meaning,  or  reason,  on  the  part  of  the  human  being  in 
question.  Even  with  this  qualification  these  laws  may 
be  said  to  have  an  immense  range  of  validity;  none  the 
less,  their  validity  is  limited  to  the  degree  to  which  men 
act  unconsciously,  and  fail  to  know  what  they  are  doing. 
And,  so  far  as  this  is  true,  the  men  to  whom  they  apply 
are  simply  mechanical  bodies,  whose  behavior  is  deter- 
mined by  mechanical  law. 

§  53.  But  now  suppose  that  the  present  point  of  view 
has  been  made  to  cover  a  wider  range.  In  this  exten- 
sion of  the  range  of  your  consciousness,  you,  the  con- 
scious agent,  have  become  a  larger  and  more  inclusive 
being.  But  our  special  point  is  to  note  that  you  have  "f,.  r 
become  at  the  same  time  a  more  individual  being. 
This  broader  view  means  that  you  are  now  living  and 
acting,  not  merely  here  and  now,  but  also  in  other  times 
and  places  in  which  there  are  other  ends  that  you  seek 
to  attain.  And  so  far  as  you  are  really  conscious  of 
them,  —  so  far,  I  mean,  as  these  other  ends  and  situa- 
tions are  not  merely  remembered,  imagined,  or  reasoned 
about  in  an  abstract  and  schematic  way,  but  conceived  • 
vividly,  distinctly,  and  concretely,  —  so  far  are  they, 
even  for  the  present  moment,  as  real,  as  vitally  important 

• 

! 


84  The  Conscious  Individual 

and  as  logically  compelling,  as  the  ends  of  the  present 
moment  itself.  What  will  be  the  result  of  this  compre- 
hensively present  view?  The  usual  empirical  psychology 
will  tell  you  that  a  vaguely  composite,  or  general  end  is 
substituted  for  the  present  particular  end,  —  a  common 
good  for  this  particular  good.  But  this  is  only  another 
case  of  pretending  to  talk  about  ideas  when  in  reality 
you  are  speaking  of  physical  things.  A  composite  pho- 
tograph is  a  blurred"  image  whose  chiefly  discernible 
features  are  the  visual  features  common  to  all  of  its 
objects.  A  composite  pudding  is  a  vague  mixture  of 
tastes  in  the  proportion  of  its  several  components.  But 
such  mixture  is  true  of  ideas  only  so  far  as  they  are  not 
really  ideas.  For  the  essence  of  an  idea  is  to  be,  not 
mixed,  but  clear.  And  a  clear  idea,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
such  as  to  present  each  of  its  details  with  perfect  indi- 
vidual distinctness,  yet  all  at  once,  articulated  into  a 
perfect  and  inclusive  system.  And  so  I  say  that  when, 
by  virtue  of  a  wider  range  of  consciousness,  you  find 
yourself  committed  to  a  greater  range  and  variety  of 
ends,  this  larger  being  which  you  have  now  become  is 
no  mere  generalization  of  these  particular  ends,  but  a 
unity  of  a  highly  specialized  grade  of  individual  meaning, 
for  which,  or  rather  for  whom,  none  of  these  particular 
ends  may  be  compromised  or  blurred  without  a  flaw  in 
the  realization  of  the  personal  self,  and  for  whom  the 
problem  of  life  is  now  to  secure  perfect  fulfilment  of  each 
of  these  ends  in  the  present  single  stroke  of  choice. 
Any  act  that  will  now  express  your  meaning  must 
therefore  be  a  finely  modelled  act.  Not  "what  any  one 
would  do"  under  the  given  circumstances,  but  only 
what  will  satisfy  that  complex  unity  of  aims  which 
represents  you.  Almost  any  heavy  instrument  will 
serve  to  hit  a  nail,  but  only  a  well  designed  hammer  will 


The  Conscious  Individual  85 

drive  a  nail  squarely,  with  economy  of  force  and  cer- 
tainty of  aim.  So,  while  a  very  crude  response  to  a 
stimulus  may  satisfy  the  present  want,  the  satisfaction 
of  a  more  inclusive  conscious  meaning  will  demand  a 
choice  of  movements  nicely  selected  and  individuated. 

§  54.  And  the  more  so  to  the  extent  that  the  mean- 
ing in  question  is  comprehensive  and  inclusive.  Each 
broader  reference  of  the  present  will  demand  a  more 
distinctly  personal  and  individual  form  of  expression. 
We  have  seen  how  much  is  involved  in  the  conception 
of  a  fully  conscious  act,  how  far  removed  is  such  an  act 
from  any  actual  human  choice.  Yet  we  have  only  to 
place  the  conception  before  us  to  see  that  our  parallelism 
of  consciousness  and  individuality  would  hold  true  to 
the  end.  If  you  could  make  the  present  choice  from 
the  standpoint  of  a  clear  vision  of  the  whole  of  your 
personal  life,  you  would  express  yourself  in  an  act  so 
individuated  that  from  all  eternity  it  could  be  the  act 
of  none  other  but  yourself;  and  in  that  perfect  individu- 
ation  it  would  have  ceased  in  any  measure  whatever  to 
be  the  expression  of  natural  law. 

§  55.  So  much  for  a  general  statement  of  our  thesis. 
To  appreciate  its  force,  however,  we  must  consider  some 
of  its  various  implications.  These  will  involve  a  repeti- 
tion in  substance  of  the  thesis  itself.  Yet  their  signifi- 
cance is  such,  I  think,  as  to  make  the  repetition  worth 
our  while. 

First,  I  wish  to  note  that  the  appearance  of  your 
conscious  individuality  upon  the  scene  of  action  means 
that  a  new  and  original  force  is  inserted  into  the  economy 
of  the  social  and  the  physical  world.  So  much,  indeed, 
is  already  implied  in  the  contrast  of  personal  meaning 
and  natural  law.  What  I  wish  to  note  now  is  that  this 
conclusion  follows  inevitably  from  any  admission  of  the 


86  The  Conscious  Individual 

efficiency,  or  even  reality,  of  consciousness.  For  the 
reality  includes  the  efficiency;  when  you  have  admitted 
a  fact  into  your  world  you  cannot  then  affirm  that  in  the 
economy  of  your  world  this  fact  makes  no  difference. 
Now  consciousness  is  just  such  a  fact.  It  matters  not 
that  certain  organic  conditions  are  necessary  to  give  the 
conscious  life  a  basis.  Assume,  if  you  like,  a  certain 
arrangement  of  reflexes  in  the  organism  in  certain  rela- 
tions to  the  details  of  the  physical  environment,  —  in 
other  words,  a  certain  outfit  of  instincts.  It  will  be 
none  the  less  true  that  the  conscious  operation  of  these 
instincts  is  a  new  and  unique  fact.  And  if  a  fact  at  all, 
then  a  fact  of  revolutionary  significance.  For  assume 
once  more  that  to  know  what  you  are  doing  makes  a 
difference.  To  know  what  you  are  now  doing  means  that 
you  also  know  what  you  were  doing  yesterday  and 
expect  to  do  tomorrow.  If,  then,  your  knowing  makes 
any  difference  whatever,  the  difference  must  be  this: 
that  you  act  now,  not  merely  in  response  to  the  present 
stimulus,  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  unity  of  per- 
sonal interests.  And  this  point  of  view,  I  say,  is  a  new 
factor  in  the  economy  of  the  social  and  physical  world, 
which  so  far  sets  aside  the  operation  of  natural  law. 
So  far  as  you  act  consciously  your  act  is  never  "natural" 
but  always  individual  and  peculiar.  Not,  indeed,  that 
it  expresses  no  law.  Conscious  action  is  the  utter  anti- 
thesis of  chance-action.  If  anything,  it  is  more  than 
ever  governed  by  law, — not,  however,  by  any  external 
economic  or  mechanical  law,  but  by  the  law  involved 
in  the  consistent  expression  of  your  personal  meaning. 
§  56.  Secondly,  let  us  note  that  this  new  force  injected 
into  the  social  and  physical  world  is  in  the  form  of  a 
personal  activity.  By  this  I  mean  that  it  is  a  force 
that  radiates  from  you  as  its  heart  and  center.  In  our 


The  Conscious  Individual  87 

derivation  of  individuality  from  consciousness  I  have 
assumed  as  a  basis  a  series  of  acts  of  a  given  physical 
organism  which  were  isolated  in  time  and  place,  and  then 
have  asked  what  would  happen  if  these  acts  became 
conscious.  But  it  must  not  be  assumed  from  this  that 
a  number  of  various  ends  have  been  simply  collected 
into  a  special  but  impersonal  group.  Any  such  assump- 
tion would  mean  that  we  are  still  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  mechanical  conception  of  a  series  of  mental 
states.  As  a  series  of  temporally  separated  states  you 
can,  indeed,  hardly  be  conceived  to  act  upon  the  world 
from  a  centralized  personal  agency.  Your  successive 
acts  must  then  be  conceived  to  be  the  acts  of  so  many 
temporally  atomic  selves.  But  the  very  notion  of  your- 
self as  a  conscious  agent  means,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
you  are  in  a  literal  sense  living  and  acting  both  in  the 
present  and  in  the  past;  that  the  self  of  yesterday, 
today,  and  tomorrow  is  not  a  succession  but  an  ever- 
immediate  logical  unity;  and  therefore  that  any  present 
and  past  act  of  yours,  however  separated  in  time,  will 
if  mutually  cognizant  as  expressions  of  the  same  personal 
meaning,  proceed  from  an  eternally  identical  personal 
agency. 

§  57.  But  thirdly,  —  in  the  degree  to  which  you  be- 
come a  conscious  individual  you  become  also  a  free 
agent.  By  this  I  mean  simply  that  as  a  conscious  being 
you  are  able  to  do  as  you  please.  But  as  a  conscious 
being  what  you  please  is  never  a  matter  of  whim  or 
chance.  Rather  should  it  be  described  as  that  which 
seems  best  to  you  when  all  things  are  considered;  and 
to  the  extent  that  you  are  conscious,  that  only  can  seem 
best  which  expresses  a  personally  consistent  course  of 
action.  If,  then,  your  consciousness  makes  any  dif- 
ference it  makes  this  difference,  that  it  makes  you  so 


88  The  Conscious  Individual 

far  independent  of  the  external  laws  of  nature.  So  much 
will  be  obvious  from  what  has  been  said  before.  My 
purpose  in  repeating  the  statement  is  not  so  much  to 
emphasize  the  fact  as  to  call  attention  to  the  intimate 
necessity  and  immediacy  of  the  connection  between  con- 
sciousness and  personal  freedom.  For,  in  order  that 
you  may  be  free,  nothing  further  is  required  than  just 
this  presence  in  your  thinking  now  and  here  of  other 
times  and  places.  So  far  as  the  present  object  stands 
alone,  so  far  are  you  compelled  to  deal  with  it  in  the 
manner  determined  by  your  inherited  instincts.  You 
are  then  the  statistical,  average  man  whose  only  func- 
tion is  to  illustrate  natural  law.  So  far,  however,  as  the 
present  object  finds  you  thinking  of  other  objects  in 
other  times  and  places,  it  encounters  in  you  an  agent 
who  is  capable  of  choosing  what  response  he  will  make. 
And  thus  it  follows  from  the  very  conception  of  conscious- 
ness that  "the  truth  shall  set  you  free." 

§  58.  Fourth  and  last,  however,  among  these  present 
considerations,  and  for  our  purpose  the  most  important 
of  all,  is  the  fact  that  in  becoming  a  conscious  individual 
you  become  an  end  in  and  for  yourself  and  a  law  unto 
yourself.  This,  indeed,  is  the  point  of  central  importance 
for  our  theory  of  individualism.  I  have  already  referred 
to  that  "ethical  paradox"  which  teaches  that  an  act, 
to  have  moral  value,  must  be  the  expression  of  personal 
choice,  yet  at  the  same  time  of  a  disinterested  choice. 
If  our  analysis  of  consciousness  means  anything  it  means 
that  a  disinterested  choice  is  absolutely  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. For  consciousness  by  its  very  nature  involves  a 
reference,  whether  of  fact  or  of  value,  to  an  individual 
and  personal  point  of  view.  A  purely  impersonal  object 
can  never  be  the  object  of  any  actual  thinking.  There 
can  be  no  idea  of  an  object  which  does  not  bear  the 


The  Conscious  Individual  89 

imprint  of  the  point  of  view  from  which  it  is  conceived, 
-just  as  there  can  be  no  sketch  or  photograph  of 
Westminster  Abbey  which  does  not  present  the  Abbey 
from  a  particular  point  in  space.  Every  conscious  grasp 
of  the  world  involves  the  location  of  yourself  as  hold- 
ing a  certain  position  in  and  toward  the  world  and  the 
orientation  of  the  world  from  that  position. 

Likewise  every  valuation  of  the  world.  For  valua- 
tion is  the  inevitable  correlate  of  any  knowing.  It  ex- 
presses your  attitude  toward  the  object  that  you  know; 
and  nothing  can  be  known  by  you  toward  which  you 
have  no  attitude  to  express.  Value  appears  in  the 
world  when  a  being  which  is  acting  in  a  certain  way  and 
moving  in  a  certain  direction  becomes  aware  of  the 
nature  and  direction  of  his  movements  and  thereby 
capable  of  asking  whether  this  is  the  direction  in  which 
he  wishes  to  move.  Value  arises,  then,  with  the  dis- 
covery and  location  of  yourself  as  a  moving  power  in 
the  world.  By  virtue  of  this  discovery  you  become 
capable  of  determining  the  direction  of  this  force  and 
the  ends  that  it  shall  accomplish.  This  consciousness 
of  your  own  power  is  all  that  creates  for  you  an  end  or 
makes  any  object  an  object  of  value.  It  is  therefore 
inconceivable  that  this  value  should  be  other  than  the 
value  which  the  object  has  for  you.  Any  other  value 
must  hang  simply  in  the  air.  It  is  true  that  any  under- 
standing of  your  own  ends  will  show  that  your  ends  are 
interwoven  with  those  of  other  conscious  beings.  And 
this  becomes  clearer  with  the  further  development  of 
consciousness.  But  at  the  same  time  it  will  become 
more  than  ever  clear  that  the  end  that  is  rational  and 
right  for  you  must,  whatever  else  it  be,  be  individually 
your  own.  The  very  meaning  of  moral  responsibility 
is  that  no  valuation  of  another  or  for  another  can  be  an 


90  The  Conscious  Individual 

end  for  you.  As  a  self-conscious  being  the  ends  of  your 
action  must  be  those  which  have  a  meaning  for  yourself ; 
and  nothing  can  have  a  meaning  for  you  in  which  your 
individual  and  personal  meaning  is  not  fully  satisfied. 
And  therefore  I  say  that  by  virtue  of  your  consciousness 
you  become  an  end  in  and  for  yourself. 

§  59.  And  as  an  end  in  yourself,  not  a  means  for  the 
ends  of  others.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  these 
others  be  your  human  others,  or  Nature,  or  God.  We 
read  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  that,  after  our  first  ancestors 
had  eaten  of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  the  Lord  God  said, 
"Behold,  this  man  has  become  as  one  of  us,  to  know 
good  and  evil."  In  this  naive  statement  we  have,  as  I 
think,  a  primitive  apprehension  of  just  those  social 
relations  which  Kant  made  explicit  a  century  ago. 
Before  this  first  "enlightenment"  the  Lord  God  was 
alone  to  be  considered,  and  the  man  could  be  regarded 
as  a  mere  instrument  for  his  satisfaction.  But  this  was 
now  forever  out  of  the  question.  He  might  be  managed 
by  hope  of  Heaven  or  fear  of  Hell;  he  might  even  be 
destroyed ;  but  as  long  as  he  retained  the  power  to  know 
he  constituted  by  that  very  fact  an  end  in  himself,  an 
"other"  even  for  the  Lord  God,  and  he  could  be  moved, 
or  morally  obliged,  only  by  an  appeal  to  his  personal 
interests. 

§  60.  So,  again,  with  regard  to  Nature.  Almost  the 
most  compelling  of  the  natural  forces  determining  human 
conduct  is  the  instinct  of  sex.  Yet  I  can  conceive  of  no 
more  conspicuous  illustration  of  the  power  of  the  con- 
scious agent  to  set  natural  law  aside.  A  century  or 
so  ago  Malthus  formulated  the  law  of  the  pressure 
of  population  upon  subsistence,  a  law  which  at  once 
found  its  place  as  an  important  term  in  the  classical 
system  of  economics.  From  this  point  of  view  the  sex- 


The  Conscious  Individual  91 

instinct  was  regarded  mainly  as  a  blind  passion,  intense 
beyond  all  rational  justification,  and  practically  inevi- 
table both  in  its  operation  and  its  results;  so  that  it 
placed,  at  least  upon  the  less  favored  of  men,  the  ter- 
rible alternative  of  a  practically  impossible  self-restraint 
or  elimination  by  starvation.  With  the  introduction 
of  evolutionary  conceptions  into  anthropology  the  esti- 
mation of  the  law  was  changed,  without,  however, 
introducing  any  change  into  its  mode  of  operation.  It 
was  now  regarded  as  a  beneficent  arrangement  whereby 
Nature  compels  the  individual,  whether  or  no,  to  fur- 
nish the  material  required  by  natural  selection  for  the 
perpetuation  of  his  race.  As  for  the  waste  involved, 
well,  evolution  has  shown  that  this  is  Nature's  way;  and 
Nature,  of  course,  knows  best.  Mais  nous  awns  change 
tout  cela,  —  as  attested  by  the  "barbaric  yawp"  over 
"race-suicide"  and  its  more  or  less  conventional  echoes. 
To  this  change  no  one  has  contributed  more  than  Mal- 
thus  and  the  anthropologists,  and  all  in  a  very  beautiful 
way.  For  if  you  once  make  it -clear  to  a  thinking  man 
that  he  is  simply  obeying  a  law  of  nature,  in  that  moment 
Nature's  law,  however  compelling  elsewhere,  has  ceased 
to  have  an  application  for  him.  You  may  tell  him,  if 
you  like,  that  Nature's  is  a  beneficent  law  and  ought  to 
be  observed.  He,  however,  as  a  responsible  agent,  will 
decide  that  for  himself. 

Let  it  be  granted  that  the  intensity  of  the  sex-instinct 
is  Nature's  way  of  preserving  the  race.  Undoubtedly 
Nature  does  preserve  the  race  by  just  this  means.  A 
large  part  of  the  race  marry  and  bring  children  into  the 
world  one  after  the  other,  with  no  clear  conception  at 
any  time  of  what  they  are  doing,  —  all  simply  in  obedi- 
ence to  Nature's  law.  Yet  suppose  that  two  people 
about  to  marry  ask  themselves  definitely  why.  The 


92      .  The  Conscious  Individual 

slightest  self-consciousness  will  show  them  that  they 
have  only  the  remotest  interest  in  the  preservation  of 
the  race.  Nothing,  indeed,  could  be  more  grotesque 
than  a  proposal  of  marriage  expressed  in  anthropological 
terms.  It  may  be  that  they  look  forward  with  pleasure 
to  a  family  of  children.  Yet  I  venture  to  say  that  even 
this  is  a  minor  consideration  beside  the  one  all-important 
purpose  of  personal  union.  Tell  them,  then,  that  this 
union  is  forbidden  by  Nature  except  at  the  price  of  chil- 
dren; they  will  undertake  to  determine  this,  if  possible, 
precisely  as  they  themselves  see  fit. 

In  this  they  will  simply  be  true  to  themselves  as  self- 
conscious  and  responsible  agents.  To  one  who  knows 
what  he  is  doing  and  is  capable  of  choosing  what  he  will 
do,  it  is  irrelevant  to  proclaim  Nature's  law.  For  him 
the  law  of  Nature  conveys  no  obligation,  and  so  far  as 
he  has  mastered  the  secrets  of  Nature  he  cannot  be 
compelled  to  obey.  Not  that  he  regards  the  ends  of 
Nature  as  necessarily  evil.  Rather,  indeed,  will  the 
man  about  to  marry  rejoice  in  the  possibility  of  having 
a  family  of  children,  nor  can  he  fail  to  be  in  some  degree 
interested  in  the  ultimate  preservation  of  his  race.  But 
the  important  point  is  that  through  the  fact  of  his  self- 
consciousness,  through  that  alone,  the  center  of  gravity 
has  been  shifted.  No  longer  is  Nature  the  end  and  he 
the  means.  If  anything  Nature  is  now  the  means.  In 
any  case  the  authority  of  Nature's  ends,  and  of  the  ways 
and  means  and  limitations  through  which  they  are  to 
be  brought  about,  must  now  depend  upon  their  impor- 
tance for  himself. 

§61.  With  this  set  of  considerations  we  might  per- 
haps conclude  our  present  topic  and  pass  to  the  next. 
Yet  if  we  are  to  comprehend  the  conscious  individual 
in  his  full  significance-  there  is  at  least  one  more  con- 


The  Conscious  Individual  93 

sideration  which  we  should  not  fail  to  note.  It  is,  I 
hope,  already  clear  that  the  conscious  individual  is  not 
to  be  denned  by  that  utilitarian  method  of  abstract  cal- 
culation, in  which  the  values  of  his  several  aims  are 
supposed  to  be  "funded"  into  a  formless  mass  of  "util- 
ity" or  "pleasure,"  for  the  purpose  of  deriving  there- 
from the  greatest  quantity  of  pleasure.  The  unity  of 
the  conscious  individual  is  not  the  unity  of  the  melting- 
pot.  Neither,  however,  is  it  the  unity  of  the  depart- 
ment store  or  the  stock-corporation.  Modern  theories 
of  the  nervous  system  are  wont  to  represent  the  individ- 
ual as  a  hierarchy  of  higher  and  lower  centers,  a  sort  of 
graded  system  of  superintendents  and  subordinates  with 
the  cerebral  hemispheres,  playing  the  part  of  captain  of 
industry,  at  their  head.  This  conception  is  reinforced 
by  the  "functional"  theory  of  consciousness,  according 
to  which  consciousness,  like  the  captain  of  industry,  is 
supposed  to  appear  upon  the  scene  only  when  the  situa- 
tion is  one  which  the  organized  habits  of  the  lower  con- 
trolling centers  are  unable  to  meet.  According  to  this 
view  consciousness  illumines  but  a  small  portion  of  the 
individual  life,  only  so  much,  indeed,  as  finds  its  way 
into  the  captain's  office.  By  the  functional  psycholo- 
gists this  arrangement  is  regarded,  of  course,  as  a  beau- 
tiful provision  of  Nature,  whereby  the  individual  is 
enabled  to  carry  on  an  extended  activity  —  to  do  a  large 
business,  so  to  speak  —  with  a  small  expenditure  of 
consciousness.  One  of  the  illustrations  commonly  em- 
ployed represents  its  advantages  for  the  artist,  —  e.g., 
the  musician,  who  practices  his  technique  until  it  be- 
comes so  automatic  and  unconscious  that  he  is  able  to 
give  his  entire  attention  to  the  work  of  interpretation. 

I  am  not  ready  to  say  that  this  view  is  entirely  with- 
out practical  justification.     All  that  I  wish  to  point  out 


94  The  Conscious  Individual 

is  that,  whatever  its  justification,  and  whatever  the  value 
of  these  automatisms  for  a  being  with  a  limited  span  of 
attention,  it  cannot  presume  to  offer  the  ideal  of  a  con- 
scious individual  from  the  standpoint  of  the  conscious 
agent  himself.  And,  indeed,  it  does  not  pretend  to  do 
so.  The  whole  of  this  functional  psychology  rests  upon 
the  assumption  that  the  organic  life  —  not  the  conscious 
life,  but  just  the  preservation  of  the  organic  individual 
in  mechanical  working-order  —  this  is  the  main  thing, 
for  the  attainment  of  which  consciousness  is  merely  an 
instrument.  So  I  shall  merely  repeat  that  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  conscious  agent  the  whole  value  of 
life  consists  in  its  being  conscious;  and  this  is  the  only 
standpoint  from  which  life,  or  anything  else,  can  have 
any  value  whatever.  From  any  standpoint  of  value,  an 
unconscious  organism,  however  lively  in  its  movements, 
is  as  worthless  as  a  corpse.  And  therefore  I  say  that 
for  the  conscious  individual  the  ideal  of  life  is  not  to 
relegate  any  part  of  his  living  to  the  care  of  nervous 
automatisms,  but  to  make  every  feature  of  life  the  object 
of  immediate  conscious  control  and  the  source  of  imme- 
diate conscious  satisfaction.  Only  that  life  is  truly 
conscious  which  is  pervaded  and  illumined  throughout 
by  the  direct  presence  of  the  whole  conscious  self.  Any 
departmental  life  is  so  far  unconscious,  and  so  far  not  a 
personal  unity. 

§  62.  Now,  although  this  ideal  is  very  remote  from 
the  economy  of  our  daily  life,  there  are  times  when  we 
measurably  approach  it,  and  there  are  activities  in  which 
it  is  clearly  our  deliberate  ideal.  I  refer  to  the  mental 
attitude  involved  in  the  creation  or  appreciation  of  a 
work  of  art.  Surely  it  is  not  automatism  that  charac- 
terizes a  true  work  of  art.  For  that  matter  any  trace  of 
automatism  is  so  far  a  blemish.  Art  aims  above  all 


The  Conscious  Individual  95 

things  to  be  free.  When,  therefore,  the  musician  prac- 
tices his  technique,  it  is  not  to  develop  a  set  of  mechani- 
cal habits  but  to  obtain  complete  conscious  control. 
And  when  at  last  he  succeeds  in  expressing  himself  with 
perfect  execution,  he  is  no  longer  playing  upon  an  un- 
conscious, foreign  instrument,  but  his  piano,  or  violin, 
has  become,  like  his  fingers,  an  integral  part  of  himself, 
and  forms,  with  his  body,  a  single  organism  which  is  now 
in  every  detail  immediately  responsive  and  alive  with 
immediate  conscious  meaning.  In  a  word,  his  con- 
scious personality  has  expanded  so  as  to  cover  now,  all 
at  once,  every  aspect  of  his  act.  In  this  victorious 
expansion  of  the  conscious  self  he  breaks  the  bonds  im- 
posed by  the  materials  of  his  art  and  becomes  freely 
creative. 

In  these  moments  ol  successful  expansion  the  agent 
is  more  than  ever  a  unique  individual.  Then,  as  at  no 
other  time,  every  feature  of  his  act  bears  his  individual 
stamp  and  is  so  shaped  that  it  could  belong  to  no  other 
person,  —  and  all  by  virtue  of  his  more  expanded  con- 
sciousness. We  need  not  be  artists  or  art-critics  to  appre- 
ciate the  truth  of  this  relation.  Or  rather  we  should 
say  that  any  one  can  appreciate  the  problem  of  art 
who  has  once  tried  to  perform  a  difficult  task  just  as 
it  ought  to  be  done.  Every  educated  man  is  familiar 
with  the  problem  involved,  for  example,  in  literary  com- 
position. There  is  perhaps  no  more  difficult  art  than  to 
say,  even  of  the  common  affairs  of  life,  precisely  what 
you  mean.  Reference  to  the  dictionary  might  lead  one 
to  believe  that  every  word  has  a  precise  and  fixed  mean- 
ing; but  the  briefest  glance  at  literature,  or  for  that  mat- 
ter a  snatch  of  animated  conversation,  will  show  that, 
so  far  as  a  man  has  a  meaning  of  his  own  to  express,  each 
item  of  his  language  expresses  his  meaning,  and  his  alone. 


96  The  Conscious  Individual 

Yet  I  suppose  that  every  one  who  attempts  to  put  his 
thoughts  into  writing  has  his  days  when  words  are  mere 
words  and  nothing  more.  We  speak  at  such  times  of 
the  difficulty  of  concentration.  But  it  is  equally  a  dif- 
ficulty of  expansion.  You  cannot  get  your  thoughts 
together  because  you  cannot  cover  your  field  of  thought. 
Like  the  traveller  in  a  fog,  your  vision  is  limited  to  the 
region  just  about  you,  and  you  find  it  difficult  to  make 
out  whence  your  argument  has  come  and  whither  you 
intend  it  to  go.  And  when  you  afterwards  review  what 
you  have  written  you  find  there  a  string  of  formal  lit- 
erary phrases  expressing  not  so  much  what  you  meant 
as  what  was  the  correct  thing  to  say.  Contrast  this 
with  the  rarer  occasions  when  you  are  truly  and  certainly 
yourself.  Then,  in  a  mental  atmosphere  of  serene  clear- 
ness, the  whole  field  of  your  argument  lies  extended 
before  you  in  perfect  distinctness  of  outline.  And  then, 
just  because  of  your  expanded  field  of  vision,  you  know 
at  each  moment  just  where  you  are,  just  what  you  mean ; 
and  every  phrase  that  you  utter,  instead  of  being  merely 
the  proper  thing  to  say,  is  now  remoulded,  re-born,  so  to 
speak,  out  of  the  depths  of  your  private  self,  and,  like 
your  hand  or  your  face,  so  individuated  that  it  could 
belong  to  no  one  else.  In  these  rare  moments  of  con- 
centration we  have  an  intimation  of  what  it  would  mean 
to  be,  in  one's  life  as  a  whole,  a  completely  integrated 
and  completely  self-conscious  individual  person.  A  life 
made  thus  finally  luminous  would  be  the  last  and  most 
perfect  embodiment  of  art. 

Such,  then,  is  the  meaning  of  the  individual.  In 
reaching  this  point  I  trust  that  I  may  now  have  justified 
our  excursion  into  the  metaphysical  wilderness  after  the 
conception  of  consciousness  and  the  gradations  of  con- 
sciousness. For  as  we  may  now  see,  it  is  your  being 


The  Conscious  Individual  97 

conscious  that  makes  you  an  individual  person,  and  your 
being  conscious  means  that,  in  contrast  to  mechanical 
objects,  you  at  this  present  moment  live  and  act  not 
only  in  the  present  but  in  the  past  and  future  as  well. 
Such  is  the  concrete  significance  of  the  conception  of  the 
one  and  the  many.  But  the  meaning  of  this  is  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  purpose  of  marking  you  off  as  an 
individual  person.  If  your  individuality  is  a  fact,  it  is  a 
practical  fact  of  revolutionary  significance.  For  it  means 
that,  so  'far,  you  are  no  longer  an  item  in  the  economy  of 
nature,  but  an  independent  and  original  force;  and  that, 
therefore,  you  are  no  longer  a  means  for  Nature's  ends, 
but  a  source  of  value  and  an  end  in  yourself.  "So  far," 
you  may  repeat.  Why,  then,  is  the  range  of  our  self- 
knowledge  so  narrowly  limited?  And  what  is  it  that 
stands  in  the  way  of  its  complete  expansion?  To  this 
final  of  all  questions  I  shall  attempt  no  answer.  I  shall 
say  only  that  to  me  the  analysis  of  these  limitations 
means  that  "the  fault  lies  not  in  our  stars,  but  in  our- 
selves." The  fact  that  we  are  now  conscious,  in  how- 
ever narrow  a  range,  —  for  science  that  fact  alone  is  a 
miracle.  And  I  can  see  no  reason  why  there  should 
not  be,  or  how  there  could  fail  to  be,  in  the  fact  of  our 
present  freedom,  and  in  that  alone,  the  promise  and 
potency  of  unlimited  further  power.  At  any  rate  I  hold 
that  the  logic  of  our  consciousness  compels  us  to  assume 
that  this  is  true. 


98  The  Conscious  Individual 


IV  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS 

§  63.  From  the  conscious  individual  we  pass  to  the 
relation  of  such  individuals  in  a  social  order.  First, 
however,  we  must  institute  a  special  inquiry  into  the 
meaning  of  these  relations  for  conscious  beings;  in  other 
words,  we  must  ask  what  is  to  be  understood  by  "social 
consciousness,"  and  what  constitutes  a  conscious  society. 
The  phrase  "social  consciousness"  is  one  of  rather  wide 
currency  and,  I  should  say,  of  corresponding  vagueness. 
Professor  Ross  gives  it  the  common  interpretation  when 
he  says  that  social  psychology  deals  with  "uniformities 
in  feeling,  belief,  or  volition."  3  This,  you  will  note,  is  an 
expression  of  the  same  mechanical  mode  of  thought  as 
that  which  conceives  the  conscious  individual  to  be  a 
composite  mixture,  or  average,  of  his  several  particular 
desires.  Along  the  same  line  it  seems  to  be  commonly 
assumed  that  a  group  of  conscious  individuals  consti- 
tutes ipso  facto  a  conscious  society,  i.e.,  merely  because, 
being  conscious,  they  are  spatially  grouped  and  interact. 
This,  however,  amounts  to  the  same  as  saying  that 
violet  is  double  red  because  the  corresponding  rate  of 
vibration  is  (approximately)  double,  or  that,  because 
of  its  location  on  the  spectrum,  yellow,  as  yellow,  is 
"between"  red  and  green.  Any  relation  of  "between- 

3  Social  Psychology,  p.  i.  The  definition  is  qualified  to  exclude  all 
but  the  uniformities  due  to  social  causes,  i.e.,  to  the  interaction  of  human 
beings;  but  from  the  first  part  of  the  definition,  and  elsewhere  in  the 
book,  it  would  seem  that  the  social  causes  fail  to  produce  correspond- 
ingly social  effects. 

It  seems  in  order  here  to  quote  Professor  Mead's  opinion  that,  "if 
we  except  Professor  Cooley,  in  his  Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order, 
and  his  Social  Organization,  the  sociologists  have  no  adequate  social 
psychology  with  which  to  interpret  their  own  science." 


Social  Consciousness  99 

ness"  between  colors  as  such  must  be  a  color-relation, 
to  be  determined,  not  from  the  location  of  hues  on  the 
spectrum,  but  from  the  nature  of  color-quality  itself. 
Likewise  I  say  that  any  social  relation  between  con- 
scious beings  as  such  must  be  a  conscious  relation,  to  be 
derived  from  the  nature  of  their  consciousness,  and  not 
from  the  fact  that  they  coexist  or  interact  in  a  world  of 
space  and  time.  This  involves,  as  we  shall  see,  a  con- 
sciousness of  relation;  not  mere  interaction,  but  mutually 
self-conscious  interaction,  or  interaction  plus  inter-com- 
munication. 

§  64.  Let  us  recall  our  definition  of  consciousness. 
The  essential  thing  about  consciousness  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  be  both  many  and  one,  both  here  and  there, 
both  now  and  then, — by  contrast  to  which  mechanical 
facts  may  be  here  or  there,  now  or  then,  but  never 
both.  We  have  seen  what  this  means  for  the  indi- 
vidual. The  individual  is  conscious  so  far  as  every 
element  of  his  being  is  one  with,  and  at  the  same  time 
distinct  from,  every  other,  —  so  far  as  every  act  is 
performed  and  every  interest  is  expressed  from  a  point 
of  view  which  at  the  same  time  expresses  every  other, 
yet  each  with  perfect  distinctness  and  fulness.  Now 
the  same  relations  are  involved  in  the  conception  of  a 
conscious  society.  And  just  as  we  have  already  de- 
cided that  the  term  "individual"  belongs  properly  to  the 
conscious  individual,  so  may  we  now  in  a  similar 
fashion  restrict  the  term  "society."  No  mere  aggre- 
gate of  units  can  constitute  a  society.  Nor  does  it 
follow  that  an  aggregate  of  human  beings  will  be  to  any 
special  degree  mutually  conscious.  Indeed,  under  mod- 
ern conditions  of  communication  such  an  inference 
would  be  conspicuously  false.  A  citizen  of  New  York 
may  be  infinitely  better  acquainted  with  a  citizen  of 


ioo  The  Conscious  Individual 

London  of  kindred  tastes  and  habits  than  with  any  of  his 
fellow-citizens  of  New  York.  His  next-door  neighbor 
in  New  York  he  may  not  know  by  name.  He  and  his 
neighbor  may  then,  indeed,  condition  each  other's  exist- 
ence, but  in  the  absence  of  mutual  knowledge  there  is 
no  distinctively  social  relation. 

A  conscious  society  —  or  a  society  —  is  constituted, 
then,  by  the  fact  that  each  of  a  number  of  individuals 
holds  a  point  of  view  which  includes  and  is  at  the  same 
time  perfectly  distinct  from  the  point  of  view  of  each 
other.  In  other  words,  society  is  constituted  by  mutual 
understanding.  No  mere  interaction  will  constitute  a 
social  relation.  Nor  yet  an  interaction  of  otherwise 
self-conscious  agents.  Not  merely  must  each  agent 
know  himself,  he  must  know  the  others.  Not  merely 
must  his  behavior  produce  an  effect  upon  them,  he  must 
produce  this  effect  consciously.  Nor  is  it  sufficient  that 
he  consciously  acts  upon  them;  he  must  have  their  con- 
scious response;  and  they,  again,  must  know  from  him 
that  their  response  is  received.  Unless  there  be  on 
both  sides  a  perfect  consciousness  of  self  and  of  other, 
and  of  the  relations  of  self  and  other  —  in  a  word,  a 
perfect  mutual  understanding  —  there  will  be,  so  far, 
no  completely  social  relation.  A  social  relation  is  a 
self-conscious  relation. 

§  65.  All  this  follows,  as  you  will  see,  directly  from 
the  conception  of  the  conscious  individual.  A  relation 
of  ideas  is  itself  an  idea,  —  never  a  mere  relation,  but  an 
idea  of  relation.  This  is  the  only  relation  that  ideas 
can  be  conceived  to  have.  It  is  admittedly  absurd  to 
say  that  one  idea  lies  north  or  south  of  another;  it  should 
be  equally  absurd  to  say  that  one  is  later  than  another. 
For  ideas  as  such  are  related,  not  temporally,  but  logi- 
cally, as  expression  of  one  inclusive  conscious  meaning. 


Social  Consciousness  101 

Apart  from  this  idea  of  relation  the  different  chapters  of 
a  book,  for  example,  are  related  only  as  so  many  facts  of 
paper  and  ink.  So  of  any  group  of  men.  The  fact 
of  spatial  congregation  expresses  truly  enough  the  rela- 
tion of  their  physical  bodies,  but  except  as  they  are 
aware  of  themselves  as  a  group  they  have,  as  ideas,  or 
minds,  or  persons,  no  relation  whatever.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  by  virtue  of  this  idea  of  relation  that  each  of 
the  individuals  knows  himself  as  himself  and  no  one  else. 
For,  as  already  noted,  an  idea  can  know  itself,  can  have 
a  meaning  of  its  own,  only  by  contrast  with  other  ideas. 
Yet  by  no  means  may  it  be  concluded  from  this  that 
the  individual  is  "the  product  of  the  social  order." 
For,  apart  from  the  irrelevance  of  the  term  "product," 
it  should  be  remembered  that  the  .social  order  —  that 
social  situation  by  contrast  to  which  the  individual  knows 
himself  —  is  never  prior  to  the  individual  but  contem- 
poraneous. And  for  him  it  is  created  and  characterized 
by  the  very  process  of  definition  in  which  he  defines  and 
asserts  himself.  Nor,  once  more,  is  the  contrast  of  self 
and  others  a  question  of  only  your  human  others.  For 
the  finer  aspects  of  your  individuality  these,  indeed,  are 
the  most  important,  yet  your  knowledge  of  yourself 
includes  none  the  less  a  contrast  of  self  and  nature. 
You  may  claim,  perhaps,  that  Nature,  too,  is  a  partner 
in  a  "social"  situation;  and  your  metaphor  would  be 
justified  so  far  as  it  stands  for  the  fact  that  your  rela- 
tion to  your  human  fellows  is  in  last  analysis  not 
absolutely  unique.  Only,  it  would  then  mean  some- 
thing very  different  to  say  that  the  individual  is  a  term 
in  a  social  contrast;  for  a  "social"  contrast  would  sim- 
ply be  any  contrast  whatever.  I  shall  say  something 
more  of  this  in  the  next  lecture,4  For  the  present  it 

« §98. 


IO2  The  Conscious  Individual 

will  be  sufficient  to  note  that  the  situation  in  which 
the  individual  defines  and  distinguishes  himself  is  not 
primarily  a  social  situation,  in  the  current  acceptance 
of  that  term,  but  a  conscious  situation. 

§  66.  Yet  it  may  be  that  the  priority  of  the  social 
unity,  defeated  at  this  point,  will  attack  us  at  another. 
"You  have  undertaken  to  prove,"  I  will  suppose  our 
objector  to  say,  "that  the  distinctively  conscious  rela- 
tions of  unity  with  multiplicity  which  make  Peter  of 
today,  yesterday,  and  tomorrow  an  individual  person, 
are  the  relations  which,  as  between  Peter  and  Paul, 
constitute  a  conscious  society.  Well,  then,  if  such  be  the 
case  society  is  also  an  individual.  Or,  rather,  shall  we 
not  say  that  after  all  society  is  the  real  unit  of  which 
the  individual  person  is  merely  an  abstract  function?" 
Now,  that  a  social  group,  such  as  a  family,  a  university, 
or  a  nation,  may  in  its  own  measure  be  regarded  as  an 
individual  person  I  shall  be  very  willing  to  admit. 
Indeed,  the  possibility  of  such  a  person  is  implied  in  our 
definition.  And  if  time  permitted  it  would  be  exceed- 
ingly interesting  to  investigate  the  manner  and  degree 
of  the  personality  of  some  of  these  group-individuals. 
They  would  be  found,  I  think,  to  possess  in  general  far 
less  of  the  unity  with  multiplicity  than  the  average, 
normal  man.  But  assume  it  to  be  otherwise:  the 
individuality  of  the  group  will  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  reflect  upon  the  individuality  of  the  individual 
member,  nor  render  him  any  less  ch'stinctly  an  end  in 
himself.  And  of  one  who  should  think  otherwise  I 
should  say  that  he  had  before  him,  not  a  conscious 
society,  in  the  sense  just  denned,  but  a  mechanical 
group.  Mechanically  speaking,  it  is  quite  correct  to 
say  that  if  the  group  is  the  unit,  the  individual  member 
is  only  a  fractional  part,  —  and  in  that  sense  an  abstrac- 


Social  Consciousness  105 

tion.  And  if  importance  be  a  question  of  number  and 
size,  then  of  course  the  single  member,  or  the  smaller 
group,  will  be  so  far  less  important  than  the  larger.  If, 
moreover,  the  different  members  of  the  group  are  bound 
together  by  mechanical  ties,  like  the  atoms  composing 
a  billiard-ball,  or  the  members  of  an  animal  body,  or  for 
that  matter,  a  pair  of  twin  stars  —  and  on  no  other 
assumption  could  they  constitute  a  strictly  mechanical 
group  —  then,  if  the  group  acts  as  a  unit,  the  action  of 
the  individual  member  will  be  subordinate  and  depend- 
ent, and  his  ends  will  be  sacrificed  to  the  group-ends. 
In  a  word,  then,  from  a  mechanical  standpoint,  it  is 
inconceivable  that  the  group  and  any  of  its  members 
should  both  be  concrete  and  free  individuals.  And  as  I 
have  noted  before,  this  mechanical  standpoint  is  respon- 
sible for  a  large  part  of  our  thinking  about  social  rela- 
tions. It  alone  can  explain  why,  even  for  idealistic 
thinking,  there  should  be  a  tendency  for  everybody  "to 
count  for  one  and  nobody  for  more  than  one";5  or  why 
the  end  of  the  single  individual  should  be  so  universally 
regarded  as  minor  or  subordinate  to  that  of  the  group. 
In  both  of  these  statements  the  social  situation  is  repre- 
sented by  a  numerical  individual  and  a  numerical  group. 
Very  different  are  the  relations  constituting  a  conscious 
society.  Grant  that  in  such  a  society  you  have  a  social 
personality.  So  far  as  the  unity  in  question  is  a  self- 
conscious  unity,  this  can  mean  only,  according  to  our 
definition,  that  each  member  has  come  to  an  under- 
standing with  each  and  every  other  on  the  basis  of  a 
mutual  recognition  of  personal  ends.  This  will  mean 
that  by  contrast  with  each  and  every  other  he  has  defined 
himself.  His  individuality  must  then  be  quite  as  rich 

5  7. e.,  why  individual  freedom  should  be  identified  with  equality  of 
rights. 


IO4  The  Conscious  Individual 

in  content  as  that  of  the  group  itself.  His  ends  must 
be  equally  significant.  And  as  we  shall  see  presently, 
he  will  be  enabled,  through  just  this  conscious  social 
relation,  to  follow  his  own  ends  in  individual  freedom 
while  fulfilling  his  obligation  to  the  group. 
-4  §  67.  Such  being  the  social  consciousness,  we  may  now 
see  what  is  meant  by  "an  increasing  social  conscious- 
ness." In  the  individual,  we  have  seen,  an  increase  of 
consciousness  means  that  the  point  of  view  of  each 
moment  has  come  to  cover  a  wider  range  of  his  individual 
life.  More  and  more  he  has  ceased  to  live  solely  in  the 
present  and  each  present  now  includes  a  wider  range 
of  his  life  in  other  times  and  places.  In  like  manner 
society  may  be  said  to  grow  in  consciousness  so  far  as 
each  individual  forms  personal  relations,  and  comes  to 
terms  of  understanding,  with  a  wider  range  of  his  fellows. 
And  thus,  once  more,  we  see  that  every  increase  of  social 
consciousness  involves  an  increasing  self -consciousness  in 
the  individuals  concerned.  For  each  new  acquaintance 
that  you  make,  and  each  step  toward  a  more  inti- 
mate acquaintance,  means  for  you  a  fresh  act  of  com- 
parison, and  a  new  distinction,  in  the  creation  of  which 
you  give  a  new  character  to  yourself  and  thus  arrive  at 
an  intenser  and  clearer  self -consciousness.  At  the  same 
time  the  consciousness  of  mutual  relations  is  intensified 
and  made  clearer  throughout  your  social  group. 

§  68.  If  consciousness  be  the  basis  of  value  this  en- 
largement of  social  relations  must  be  regarded  as  the 
central  fact  in  the  progress  of  culture  and  civilization. 
In  this  fact  we  must  look  for  the  meaning  of  those 
agencies  which  by  common  consent  have  so  rapidly 
intensified  and  broadened  the  civilization  of  the  modern 
world,  —  the  railroad,  the  steamship,  the  telegraph,  the 
printing-press,  and  the  newspaper.  The  effect  of  all 


Social  Consciousness  105 

these  is  to  bring  men  who  are  separated  by  distance,  or 
by  accidents  of  social  position,  into  relations  of  mutual 
acquaintance,  and  thus  to  secure  for  each  a  larger  range 
of  personal  life.  So,  in  particular,  of  commerce  and 
education.  The  basis  of  commerce  is  an  intercommuni- 
cation of  wants.  Education  is  a  matter  mainly  of  con- 
tact with  other  minds.  This,  indeed,  is  the  whole 
meaning  of  the  higher,  or  liberal,  education,  —  that 
through  the  medium  of  libraries  and  schools  we  are 
brought  into  intimate  intercourse  with  the  great  minds 
of  other  ages  and  peoples  in  their  best  and  most  serious 
moments.  The  whole  process  of  culture  and  civiliza- 
tion is  thus  a  process  of  increasing  self-consciousness  in 
the  individual  and  in  the  race.  In  this  development  the 
conscious  aspect  is  the  central  fact  that  gives  meaning 
and  justification  to  the  whole.  Commerce,  for  example, 
is  not  a  mere  means  for  increasing,  through  exchange, 
the  supply  of  serviceable  goods,  —  any  more  than  the 
activities  of  individual  reason  are  mere  means  for  keep- 
ing a  foreign  body  alive.  The  value  of  the  bodily  life 
lies  in  its  being  consciously  lived;  and  any  activity 
become  self-conscious  becomes  thereby  an  end  in  itself. 
So  of  commerce.  As  an  unconscious  process,  a  sort  of 
social  habit,  it  has  indeed  a  value,  like  any  other  mechani- 
cal process,  in  the  ends  that  it  happens  to  effect.  But 
when  the  commercial  relation  becomes  a  self-conscious 
relation  —  not  merely  an  interchange  of  goods,  but  a 
conscious  interchange,  based  upon  a  mutual  apprecia- 
tion of  wants  —  a  new  meaning  is  introduced ;  and  the 
increase  of  serviceable  goods,  though  no  less  an  end  than 
before,  is  now  but  one  feature  in  the  enlargement  of  the 
personal  life  through  broader  social  relations. 

§  69.   But  for  my  purpose  the  special  point  of  all  this 
is  not  so  much  the  social  consciousness  as  the  social 


io6  The  Conscious  Individual 

unconsciousness.  For  indeed  it  must  be  clear  that  if 
consciousness  of  mutual  relations  marks  the  end  of 
culture  and  civilization  that  end  must  be  for  us  still  in- 
definitely remote.  We  have  seen  how  far  is  any  individ- 
ual life  from  a  complete  interrelation  of  its  several  aims. 
Further,  if  anything,  must  be  the  race  as  a  whole  from 
that  universality  of  personal  relationship  and  mutual 
understanding  which  would  make  it  a  completely  self- 
conscious  human  race.  Yet  just  as  we  tend  to  think 
of  the  human  being  as  a  once-for-all  conscious  being,  so 
do  we  think  of  the  human  race  as,  by  virtue  of  this 
fact,  a  conscious  race.  But  a  conscious  race  implies  a 
consciousness  of  social  relations;  and  it  is  evident  that 
even  intelligent  men  who  stand  in  important  physical 
or  economic  relations  to  each  other  may  be  conscious 
of  this  relationship  in  very  various  degrees.  But  if 
the  consciousness  of  social  relations  is  a  significant  social 
fact,  the  unconsciousness  of  these  relations  must  be  a 
fact  equally  significant  and  illuminating. 

Since  every  human  being  is  to  some  degree  conscious, 
I  am  unable  to  present  a  case  of  complete  unconscious- 
ness of  social  relations.  The  most  benighted  savage 
must  be  supposed  to  have  some  notion  of  his  relation 
to  his  tribe,  and  no  doubt  he  has  a  vague  conception 
of  "the  race  as  a  whole."  Yet  for  our  purpose  it  is 
rather  important  to  have  a  flesh  and  blood  picture  of 
what  complete  social  unconsciousness  would  mean.  The 
billiard-balls  on  the  table  would  furnish  a  just  illus- 
tration. But  more  illuminating  would  be  that  social 
situation  which  is  sometimes  applied  to  human  beings 
as  a  term  of  reproach,  the  situation  of  the  animal  herd. 
Picture  to  yourselves  a  herd  of  cattle  grazing  in  the 
pasture.  No  doubt  there  is  a  certain  unity  there. 
Some  not  quite  unconscious  social  instinct  keeps  them 


Social  Consciousness  107 

more  or  less  together;  and  probably  the  mental  condi- 
tion of  each  is  different  from  what  it  would  be  if  he  were 
grazing  alone.  But  such  unity  is  very  remote  from  the 
unity  of  conscious  beings  who  are  actively  aware  of  each 
other.  Through  the  long  day  you  will  observe  few  signs 
of  mutual  recognition.  In  fact  your  cattle  behave  much 
like  a  group  of  human  individuals  who  by  some  chance 
had  overlooked  the  presence  of  each  other  in  the  same 
room. 

§  70.  Now,  among  the  smaller  human  groups  such 
mutual  oblivescence  is  (except  by  special  convention) 
rarely  found.  Yet  in  the  larger  groups  we  shall  find  pre- 
cisely the  same  conditions  that  we  find  among  the  cat- 
tle. In  the  small  town,  of  course,  everybody  knows  his 
neighbor  and  his  neighbor's  business.  But  in  the  large 
city  this  is  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule.  Your 
neighbor's  business  may,  for  all  you  know,  be  exerting 
a  very  decided  effect  upon  your  own,  yet  you  pass  on 
the  street  with  as  little  recognition  as  that  of  the  cattle 
in  the  pasture.  Still  less  does  any  personal  relationship 
pervade  the  nation  as  a  whole.  "The  will  of  the  people" 
is  no  doubt  the  highest  law;  but  the  will  of  the  people 
as  expressed  at  the  polls  is  a  psychological  and  social 
fact  of  very  different  order  from,  say,  the  will  of  a  family 
which  has  been  reached  after  personal  conference  and 
discussion.  For,  in  spite  of  all  modern  improvements 
in  the  gathering  and  dissemination  of  news,  the  nation 
as  a  whole  remains  still  to  a  very  large  degree  an  aggre- 
gate of  more  or  less  isolated  and,  as  regards  mutual 
understanding,  foreign  groups.  Indeed,  it  is  becoming 
every  day  clearer  that  the  greatest  problem  for  a  de- 
mocracy on  a  large  scale  is  the  problem  of  "getting 
together"  for  the  purpose  of  self-conscious  and  intelli- 
gent action.  In  the  meantime  between  our  political  life 


Io8  The  Conscious  Individual 

and  that  of  the  cattle  there  is  often  a  striking  resem- 
blance. A  movement  is  started  in  a  certain  direction 
and  the  crowd  follows,  not  by  reason  of  any  individual 
approval,  but  as  the  result  chiefly  of  the  bovine  habit 
of  all  unthinking  animals  of  doing  what  they  see  others 
do.  The  average  citizen  at  the  polls  either  votes  blindly, 
according  to  family  tradition  and  habit,  or,  if  he 
essays  a  self-conscious  choice,  he  finds  himself  limited 
to  a  list  of  candidates  none  of  whom  meets  his  approval, 
and  this  list  he  could  scarcely  hope  to  alter  except  at 
a  large  sacrifice  of  the  time  and  attention  required  for 
his  own  affairs.  You  have  all  known  of  cases  where, 
because  each  member  of  a  committee,  or  what  not, 
thought  he  was  voting  with  the  majority,  the  combined 
vote  was  unsatisfactory  to  all  concerned.  Very  much  of 
this  sort  of  thing  may  be  found  in  our  national  politics, 
and  all  because  of  unconsciousness  of  our  social  life. 

Taking  a  broad  view  of  the  field  of  humanity  we 
find  men  separated  into  various  more  or  less  overlap- 
ping groups,  —  spatial  groups  determined  by  geographi- 
cal boundaries,  class  and  family  groups,  and  groups 
determined  by  special  professional  or  personal  interests. 
For  the  average  individual  of  any  group  a  given  individ- 
ual of  another  group  makes  commonly,  as  an  individual, 
no  difference  in  his  conscious  world.  In  Balzac's  "Pere 
Goriot"  young  Rastignac,  tempted  to  become  a  silent 
partner  to  the  arrangement  of  a  profitable  duel,  asks  a 
friend  whether  he  would  feel  any  serious  responsibility  if 
a  formally  innocent  act  of  his  should  cause  the  death 
of  an  unknown  mandarin  in  China.  The  question  is  a 
searching  one.  It  requires  an  effort  of  imagination  to 
feel  responsible  for  a  brother  whom  you  do  not  know. 
Even  those  who  believe  in  heathen  damnation  are  rarely 
prostrated  by  their  belief.  As  I  sit  before  a  grate  of 


Social  Consciousness  109 

blazing  coal  on  a  cold  Winter  night  I  know,  of  course, 
that  the  coal  has  been  mined  by  some  individual  miner, 
by  hard  and  disagreeable  work,  at  some  risk  of  his  life; 
but  this  knowledge  hardly  disturbs  my  equanimity.  Yet 
if  that  miner  were  personally  known  to  me,  and  espe- 
cially if  the  work  of  mining  my  coal  were  performed,  so 
to  speak,  before  my  eyes,  I  could  hardly  avoid  making 
his  problem  my  own.  This  only  shows  how  imper- 
fectly conscious  is  our  mutual  relation.  For  relation 
there  is.  I  depend  upon  his  work,  he  depends  upon  my 
money.  In  spite  of  all  the  complexities  involved  in  the 
process  of  exchange  it  remains  a  fact  that  my  consump- 
tion, or  non-consumption,  of  coal  makes  a  difference  in 
the  coal  market,  a  difference  which  finally  makes  itself 
felt  in  the  life  of  some  one  or'  more  of  the  individual 
miners.  That  this  difference  cannot  be  traced  does  not 
mean  that  it  is  "  absorbed  "  in  a  social  process.  It  means 
only  that  the  social  process  is  so  far  an  unconscious 
process. 

§  71.  Thus  from  the  more  distant  view.  When,  how- 
ever, we  take  a  nearer  and  more  intimate  view  of  the 
several  individual  lives  we  find  the  social  darkness 
relieved  here  and  there  by  smaller  or  larger  circles  of 
mutual  understanding,  each  of  which  casts  a  certain 
glow  upon  the  situation  as  a  whole.  No  individual  is 
utterly  isolated.  Each  is  the  center  of  a  circle  of  more 
or  less  intimate  relations  within  which  the  conscious- 
ness of  relationship  is  developed  to  a  comparatively  high 
degree.  Beyond  this  intimate  circle  there  is  the  larger 
circle  of  ordinary  daily  intercourse.  But  in  every 
such  group  there  are  men  of  broader  culture  and  educa- 
tion whose  conscious  life  goes  beyond  the  immediately 
visible  circle  into  a  larger  social  world,  —  the  natural 
scientist  who  views  the  world  just  before  him  as  a  term 


HO  The  Conscious  Individual 

in  a  system  of  nature;  the  economist  who  views  the 
special  conditions  of  his  own  life  as  the  expression  of  the 
complex  activities  of  the  race;  the  student  of  litera- 
ture who  cultivates  sympathetic  intercourse  with  men 
of  other  tongues  and  times;  and  finally  the  philosopher 
who  seeks  explicitly  to  know  himself  in  his  relations  to 
every  other  fact  in  the  universe.  The  effect  of  all  these 
activities  is  to  establish  relations  of  personal  intercourse 
with  men  of  distant  groups  and  widely  different  views 
of  life.  The  higher  culture  is  thus  an  extension  of  the 
intimately  personal  relation  into  a  wider  field,  or  in 
other  words,  an  extension  of  the  field  of  conscious  social 
relations.  On  the  other  hand  each  such  extension 
involves  an  intensification  of  the  individual  self-con- 
sciousness, which  is  reflected  in  a  further  refinement  of 
relations  within  the  more  familiar  circle;  so  that  it  may 
be  said  that  the  finer  degrees  of  personal  intimacy  are 
reserved  for  those  of  developed  minds.  Yet  the  per- 
sonal understanding  remains  incomplete  among  the 
most  enlightened  of  men.  To  the  English  reader,  how- 
ever appreciative,  the  point  of  view  of  French  literature 
is  never  quite  comprehensible.  Just  so  in  the  case  of 
your  wife,  your  son,  your  closest  friend.  In  the  most 
intimate  of  personal  relations  each  still  lives  in  a  world 
which  is  in  some  degree  isolated  and  outside  of  the 
world  of  his  fellow. 


The  Conscious  Society  in 


V  THE  CONSCIOUS  SOCIETY 

§  72.  We  have  now  to  develop  the  significance  of  our 
conception  of  social  consciousness  for  the  adjustment  of 
social  relations.  And  in  this  we  shall  see,  I  trust,  the 
importance  of  having  this  relation  of  conscious  beings 
correctly  and  clearly  defined.  For  if  the  presence  of 
consciousness  in  society  stands  for  nothing  more  than  a 
certain  uniformity  of  belief  and  feeling,  it  is  not  to  be 
seen  how  consciousness  can  make  any  difference  in  the 
adjustment  of  social  relations.  For  that  matter  it 
might  seem  only  to  show  that  social  adjustment  is 
impossible;  for  where  all  want  the  same  thing  few  will 
be  satisfied,  especially  if  no  man  of  them  knows  what  the 
other  man  wants.  If,  however,  the  presence  of  con- 
sciousness in  society  means  that  each  knows  the  other 
as  well  as  himself,  and  the  other  as  other  and  distinct 
from  himself,  we  can  see  at  once  how  consciousness  may 
be  an  effective  adjusting  force.  For  now  we  have,  in 
the  relation  of  man  to  man,  the  same  relation  that  we 
found  between  the  different  demands  of  the  individual 
self.  There  we  saw  that  by  the  mere  fact  of  being  con- 
scious —  of  including  in  his  present  act  a  consideration 
of  the  past  and  future  —  the  individual  is  enabled  so  to 
adjust  his  several  demands  as  to  give  satisfaction  to  all; 
by  this  fact  he  is  removed  from  the  jurisdiction  of  laws 
of  nature  and  enabled  to  assert  himself  as  an  independ- 
ent power  with  purposes  of  his  own.  The  same  results 
follow  from  a  consciousness  of  each  other.  If  conscious- 
ness makes  a  difference  anywhere  it  must  also  make  a 
difference  here.  And  this  can  mean  only  that,  merely 
through  knowing  one  another,  men  are  enabled  so  far 
—  so  far  as  their  mutual  knowledge  is  complete  —  to 


112  The  Conscious  Individual 

effect  such  a  mutual  adjustment  of  activities  that  each 
may  enjoy  perfect  satisfaction  and  freedom.  Through 
this  mutual  knowledge  the  group,  like  the  individual,  is 
enabled  to  assert  itself  as  an  independent  force.  The 
social  life  become  conscious  is  no  longer  an  illustration 
of  impersonal  laws,  but  the  expression  of  a  system  of 
personal  ends  determined  in  mutual  freedom  and  agree- 
ment. On  the  other  hand  the  social  life  not  become 
conscious  is  a  matter  of  rigid  mechanical  law,  by  which 
the  individual  members  are  committed  to  mutual 
hostility  and  repression. 

§  73.  So  comprehensive  a  thesis  can  hardly  be  proved 
in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  and  much  of  what  would 
constitute  proof  has  been  already  indicated  in  the 
analysis  of  the  conceptions.  I  shall  therefore  confine 
myself  to  certain  of  the  more  salient  points.  And  in 
the  first  place  I  will  ask  you  to  consider  once  more  the 
situation  in  an  unconscious  society.  This  was  illus- 
trated by  us  in  the  figure  of  the  herd;  but,  as  I  remarked, 
a  juster  illustration  could  have  been  found  in  the  bil- 
liard-balls on  the  table.  Now,  as  noted  in  the  First 
Lecture,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  social  philosophy  which 
seems  eminently  true  of  billiard-balls  but  hardly  true 
of  men.  If,  however,  we  take  certain  social  phenomena 
as  typical,  we  shall  find  between  these  and  the  situation 
of  the  billiard-balls,  no  mere  analogy,  but  an  abso- 
lute sameness  of  kind.  For  consider  what  the  situation 
involves.  In  the  first  place  each  ball  is  an  isolated 
unit.  For  you,  indeed,  surveying  them  all  together  in 
the  unity  of  your  scientific  point  of  view,  they  are  terms 
in  a  mechanical  system  of  relations;  but  for  them  there 
is  no  relationship  whatever.  Each  moves  in  a  direction 
determined  a  tergo  by  its  previous  contacts,  and  the  fact 
that  there  are  other  balls  on  the  same  table  ready  to 


The  Conscious  Society  113 

impede  its  movements  makes  absolutely  no  difference. 
Each  acts,  in  other  words,  as  if  it  were  alone  in  the 
world.  In  the  second  place  the  movements  both  of 
each  individual  as  such  and  of  the  group  as  a  whole  are 
determined  by  an  external  impersonal  law.  To  be  sure 
it  is  sometimes  said,  by  those  who  seek  an  illustration 
of  personal  freedom  in  the  behavior  of  a  falling  body, 
that  the  body  in  falling  expresses  its  own  inward  nature. 
But  the  truth  is  that  a  mechanical  body,  as  conceived 
by  us,  has  no  inward  nature.  The  movements  of  the 
billiard-balls  are  the  expression  neither  of  individual  will 
nor  of  social  agreement;  and  any  rational  governing 
power  —  anything  that  determines  their  movements  to 
be  legal  and  consistent  —  lies  not  in  them  but  outside 
of  them,  in  "Nature"  or  in  God.  Thirdly,  however, 
you  will  note  that,  in  the  absence  of  any  social  agree- 
ment, the  several  individuals  are  bound  sooner  or  later 
to  collide  and  thus  to  be  a  source  of  mutual  retardation 
and  interference.  Only  a  preestablished  harmony  of 
movement  could  make  it  otherwise.  And  thus  in  the 
absence  of  social  relations  there  is  a  corresponding  lack 
of  individual  freedom. 

Now,  as  I  have  said,  this  situation  is  precisely  true 
of  certain  human  relations,  and  for  precisely  the  same 
reasons.  You  see  it  at  its  best  in  the  phenomenon  of  the 
crowd,  or  the  mob,  —  in  a  society  in  a  state  of  panic. 
A  good  deal  of  psychology  has  been  wasted  upon  the 
crowd;  and  for  some  social  psychologists  human  society 
is  simply  a  crowd  and  nothing  more.  The  truth  is,  I 
should  say,  that  in  spite  of  the  commotion  involved  in  a 
crowd,  there  is  less  of  the  distinctively  conscious  life 
there  than  anywhere  else.6  Every  now  and  then  we 
read  in  the  newspapers  of  some  deplorable  affair  where 

6  See  Ross,  Social  Psychology,  Chap.  III. 
8 


114  The  Conscious  Individual 

hundreds  of  persons  have  been  trampled  or  burned  to 
death,  and  the  thought  that  strikes  us  instantly  is  that 
if  even  a  few  of  those  persons  had  possessed  the  presence 
of  mind  (note  the  phrase)  and  the  degree  of  common 
sense  which  they  apply  to  the  ordinary  problems  of  life, 
all  might  easily  have  been  saved.  But  the  man  in  the 
crowd  is  the  relatively  unconscious  man.  You  know 
how  it  is  at  the  ticket-office  of  a  railway  or  a  theatre. 
The  man  on  one  side  of  you  pushes  you  in  one  direction, 
the  man  on  the  other  side  pushes  you  back.  Of  course 
you  know,  when  you  think  of  it  afterward,  that  neither 
of  these  had  any  hostile  intentions,  and  that  each  was 
being  urged  by  the  man  further  on.  But  you  will  be 
abnormally  clear-headed  if  you  think  of  this  at  the 
time,  or  if  you  do  any  thinking  at  all.  The  usual  result 
is  that  thinking  comes  to  a  stop  and,  in  its  absence,  you 
are  carried  away  by  the  blind  instinct  of  resistance  and 
give  each  of  your  neighbors  a  push  in  return.  So  that 
presently  the  situation  becomes  an  exact  illustration  of 
the  kinetic  theory  of  gases;  indeed  I  am  not  sure  that 
the  theory  of  gases  is  not  derived  from  this  human 
experience.  But  in  any  case  this  situation  is  the  same 
as  that  of  the  billiard-balls,  —  not  analogous  but  the 
same.  For  the  only  relations  involved  are  mechanical 
relations.  The  only  forces  at  work  are  mechanical 
instincts,  —  that  is  to  say,  reflex  arrangements  in  the 
nervous  system  stimulated  by  external  mechanical 
objects.  In  the  absence  of  consciousness  the  laws  that 
they  obey  have  no  reference  either  to  individual  will  or 
social  agreement.  They  are  simply  the  general  and 
impersonal  laws  of  nervous  action.  The  result  of  their 
unconscious  working  is  therefore,  from  any  human 
standpoint,  inevitable  conflict  and  confusion.  The  in- 
dividual men  make  as  little  difference  to  each  other  as  the 


The  Conscious  Society  115 

several  billiard-balls;  serviceable  energy  is  dissipated, 
so  to  speak,  in  heat;  and  no  human  purpose  is  realized  in 
the  direction  either  of  social  order  or  personal  freedom. 

§  74.  But  these  relations  would  have  little  interest 
for  us  if  they  were  found  only  in  the  exceptional  case. 
The  point  is  that  the  mob-aspect  is  one  that  charac- 
terizes to  a  greater  or  less  extent  all  of  our  social  rela- 
tions. And  strange  as  it  may  seem,  in  the  normal 
regions  of  social  life  it  is  nowhere  more  prevalent  than 
in  the  field  of  industry  and  commerce.  The  modern 
organization  of  industry  is  regarded,  justly  no  doubt, 
as  a  triumph  of  human  intellect.  Yet  it  is  also  recog- 
nized that,  among  the  occupations  of  peace,  commerce 
and  industry  are  those  that  most  resemble  war.  Not 
long  ago,  before  the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  the 
attorney  for  one  of  the  most  predatory  of  our  predatory 
corporations  undertook  to  justify  his  client's  conduct 
on  the  ground  that  of  necessity  "war  is  hell."  Yet 
commerce  is  adjustment.  How,  then,  shall  we  reconcile 
these  contradictory  aspects  of  the  situation?  To  my 
mind  the  general  explanation  is  a  simple  one.  The  rela- 
tions and  activities  of  commerce  are  partly  conscious 
and  partly  unconscious,  or  rather  in  varying  degrees 
conscious  and  unconscious.  Our  age  has  been  brilliantly 
successful  in  the  conquest  of  nature,  and  hardly  less  so 
in  the  organization  of  the  activities  of  production. 
But  what  is  gained  in  production  seems  to  be  wasted  in 
distribution.  For  somehow  or  other,  to  the  average 
man  the  problem  of  making  a  living  is  as  difficult  as  ever. 
Part  of  the  difficulty  arises  of  course  from  an  expanded 
scale  of  living,  but  much  of  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
gains  from  concentrated  production  are  largely  offset 
by  the  cost  —  under  the  present  system  —  of  expansive 
distribution. 


n6  The  Conscious  Individual 

To  the  detached  view  of  a  philosopher,  say  a  philoso- 
pher arriving  from  Mars,  our  distributive  system  must 
present  a  rather  curious  sight.  Armies  of  stenographers, 
accountants,  and  travelling  salesmen,  tons  of  paper  and 
various-colored  inks,  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  post- 
age stamps,  —  devoted  to  what?  To  the  promotion 
of  mutual  understanding  between  producer  and  con- 
sumer? Only  partly  that.  Rather,  as  much  as  any- 
thing else,  to  mutual  mystification.  In  other  words, 
about  nine-tenths  of  this  distributive  activity  is  ex- 
pended in  making  an  impression.  You  buy  a  cake  of 
soap  and  a  good  part  of  the  price  is  for  a  share  in  a  two- 
thousand-dollar  page  of  colored  advertisement  which 
is  to  incite  you  to  buy,  —  and  which,  quite  unknown  to 
yourself,  is  very  likely  the  cause  of  your  buying.  Now 
the  brilliance  of  the  advertisement  is  no  argument  for 
excellence  in  the  soap.  Such  an  argument,  as  an  argu- 
ment, you  would  clearly  despise,  —  just  as  you  would 
refuse  to  pay  a  life-insurance  agent  an  extra  fee  for 
persuading  you  to  take  his  policy,  if  that  item  were 
definitely  specified  in  the  bill.  And  no  doubt  the  soap- 
maker  is  of  the  same  mind.  He,  too,  would  prefer  to 
give  you  your  money's  worth  in  soap.  Neither  of  you, 
for  example,  would  sign  a  contract  to  the  effect  that  the 
party  of  the  first  part  agrees  to  make  a  vivid  impression 
upon  the  party  of  the  second  part,  in  return  for  which 
the  party  of  the  second  part  agrees  to  buy  a  cake  of  soap 
and  in  addition  to  pay  two  or  three  times  its  value 
toward  the  cost  of  the  impression.  And  so  I  say  that  a 
dispassionate  observer  might  well  wonder  at  the  methods 
adopted  by  a  society  of  rational  beings  for  the  exchange 
of  useful  commodities.  The  truth  is  that  society  has 
never  adopted  these  methods. '  For  "society,"  as  I  have 
said,  implies  a  conscious  and  personal  relation.  A  social 


The  Conscious  Society  117 

action  is  an  action  by  mutual  agreement.  The  producer 
and  consumer  have  never  formed  this  relation.  Sepa- 
rated by  several  grades  of  middle-men,  each  is  to  the 
other  hardly  more  than  a  name.  Their  actual  relation 
is  therefore  for  the  most  part  simply  that  of  two  distant 
members  of  a  crowd.  And  just  as  in  any  other  crowd, 
the  energy  that  might  be  utilized  for  mutual  advantage 
is  dissipated  in  unserviceable  commotion  and  noise. 

§  75.  In  this  absence  of  personal  relation  we  may  dis- 
cern the  ground,  and  at  the  same  time  the  field  of  opera- 
tion, of  the  impersonal  economic  laws.  The  operation 
of  these  laws,  as  we  have  seen,  excludes  the  notion  of 
choice,  either  personal  or  by  social  agreement.  When 
your  retail  merchant  is  unable  to  suit  you  either  in  style 
or  price,  and  you  learn  from  him  that  styles  and  prices 
are  fixed  by  the  manufacturer,  no  doubt  you  think  that 
the  manufacturer,  at  least,  is  free,  while  you  are  rigidly 
bound.  But  the  truth  is  that  he,  like  yourself,  is  at  the 
mercy  of  supply  and  demand.  Now  this  law  of  supply 
and  demand  has  little  or  no  relevance  to  a  transaction 
conducted  face  to  face.  It  would  be  true  there  only  so 
far  as  each  had  determined  to  conceal  his  real  aims  from 
the  other  and  at  the  same  time  to  ignore  any  offer  that 
the  other  should  voluntarily  make.  But  when  two 
countrymen  come  together  for  a  trade  a  rejected  offer 
is  sure  to  be  replaced  by  a  counter-bid,  and  the  process 
continues  until  each  has  disposed  of  the  article  of  prop- 
erty most  unserviceable  to  himself  but  serviceable  to 
the  other,  and  has  received  in  return  a  similar  article,  — 
similar,  that  is,  in  being  serviceable  to  himself  but  un- 
serviceable to  the  other.  The  process  is  a  process  of 
mutual  understanding,  of  forming  a  conscious  relation; 
and  if  ideally  carried  out,  it  results  in  mutual  advantage 
and  freedom.  But  no  definite  supply  is  opposed  to  a 


Il8  The  Conscious  Individual 

definite  demand.  The  formulation  of  the  demand  de- 
pends upon  that  of  the  supply,  while  that  of  the  supply 
depends  upon  that  of  the  demand.  What  you  have, 
then,  is  not  a  mathematical  ratio  of  determinate  quan- 
tities, but  a  social  relation  of  personal  aims  determined 
in  mutual  understanding. 

All  this  is  changed  when  the  scale  of  commerce  is 
extended.  Economists  sometimes  talk  about  "the  mar- 
ket" as  if  the  market  were  still  the  market-place  of  a 
small  German  town,  where  men  meet  at  once  for  the 
exchange  of  goods  and  for  a  social  glass  of  beer.  They 
also  attach  a  good  deal  of  importance  to  the  process  of 
bargaining,  or  "higgling."  But  under  large-scale  con- 
ditions the  higgling  must  be  reduced  almost  to  a  mini- 
mum. The  manufacturer  is,  no  doubt,  desirous  of 
knowing  what  the  consumer  demands,  and  the  consumer, 
through  the  tendency  indicated  in  his  selections  and 
rejections,  succeeds  to  some  extent  in  getting  himself 
heard.  But  such  a  correspondence,  conducted  through 
a  series  of  middle-men,  and  not  so  much  by  real  com- 
munication as  by  inference  from  tabulated  facts,  is  a 
very  imperfect  form  of  mutual  response.  In  the  mean- 
time the  commercial  situation  bears  not  a  little  resem- 
blance to  that  of  the  West  Coast  African  forest,  where  the 
seller  leaves  a  quantity  of  goods  by  the  side  of  the  road, 
with  the  price  marked,  and  protected  by  a  juju,  and  the 
buyer  may  pay  the  price  or  leave  them.  Under  the 
large-scale  conditions  of  civilized  life  the  seller  of  goods, 
in  much  the  same  way,  faces  an  opaque,  impersonal 
demand.  Whose  demand,  he  knows  not.  It  may  be  a 
very  stupid  demand.  But  in  any  case  it  is  not  to  be 
reasoned  with  or  altered,  either  for  better  or  for  worse, 
but  simply  to  be  accepted  and  provided  for  as  a  hard 
and  unyielding  fact.  The  buyer  faces  a  similarly  opaque 


The  Conscious  Society  1 19 

supply.  The  result  in  each  case  is  the  typical  "  economic 
man,"  no  longer  a  hypothetical  entity,  but  alive  and 
present  in  the  flesh;  for,  under  the  conditions  as  stated, 
"buying  in  the  lowest  market  and  selling  in  the  highest" 
is  about  the  only  thing  to  do.  It  is  impossible  that  this 
buying  and  selling  should  be  intelligently  adjusted  for 
the  satisfaction  of  social  and  personal  ends.  For  the 
conditions  are  lacking  in  which  either  personal  choice 
or  social  agreement  could  have  anything  to  say.  The 
one  force  determining  everything  is  the  law  of  supply 
and  demand.  To  this  the  individual  can  at  best  oppose 
a  certain  blind  resistance,  adjusting  himself  to  the  con- 
ditions confronting  him  so  that  their  disadvantages  shall 
as  far  as  possible  be  directed  away  from  himself  and  fall 
upon  an  unknown  somebody  else. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  this  unconscious  side  of  the  eco- 
nomic situation  because  for  our  special  purpose  it  is  the 
more  significant.  I  would  not  be  understood  to  deny 
that  the  economic  process  is  a  conscious  process.  All 
that  I  say  is,  first  that  it  is  an  imperfectly  conscious 
process  —  which,  after  all,  may  be  obvious  enough  — 
but  secondly  that  to  this  unconscious  side  of  the  process 
is  to  be  attributed  that  feature  of  the  situation  by  virtue 
of  which  your  gain  is  necessarily  my  loss.  I  might  take 
up  the  conscious  aspect  of  the  situation  and  show  that 
on  this  side  we  have  a  truly  social  organization  effecting, 
in  its  own  degree,  both  harmony  and  freedom.  But 
after  all  that  has  been  said  this  will  be  superfluous.  Nor 
will  it  be  worth  while  for  me  to  offer  any  special  argu- 
ment for  the  truth  of  these  relations  for  the  social  situa- 
tion as  a  whole.  All  that  I  wish  to  add  at  this  point  is 
a  reply  to  those  who  in  general  deny  that  the  progress 
of  culture  and  civilization  —  the  growing  self-conscious- 
ness of  the  relation  of  man  to  man  —  has  accomplished 


I2O  The  Conscious  Individual 

any  desirable  results.  It  is  a  very  common  saying  that 
the  effect  of  culture  is,  not  to  abolish  the  natural  human 
brutality,  but  only  to  make  brutality  more  refined. 
Civilization  has  not  abolished  war.  It  has  only  made 
the  destruction  of  life  a  more  scientifically  effective 
process.  And  for  the  war  of  blood  and  arms  it  has 
substituted  the  slowly  wasting  process  of  economic  war; 
for  chattel  slavery,  industrial  slavery. 

§  76.  Now  it  is  true  that  civilization  has  not  abolished 
war;  but  I  think  that  a  comparison  of  civilized  with 
savage  war  will  precisely  demonstrate  my  point.  For, 
in  the  first  place,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  elabora- 
tion of  the  rules  of  war  has  made  warfare  much  less 
demoralizing  and  destructive.  The  steady  tendency  of 
these  rules  has  been  to  confine  the  issue  to  the  actual 
scene  of  conflict  and  to  leave  the  non-combatants  at 
liberty  to  pursue  their  ordinary  occupations.  Those 
who  smile  at  the  absurdity  of  deliberately  regulated 
killing  probably  fail  to  consider  the  unrestrained  mas- 
sacre and  pillage  which  characterize  a  warfare  blindly 
impulsive.  Mere  contact  with  the  associations  of  the 
Thirty  Years  War,  as  suggested  by  the  relics  at  Nurem- 
berg and  Rothenburg,  should  be  sufficient  to  alter  their 
opinion.  But,  apart  from  these  considerations,  civilized 
warfare  is  a  more  positively  logical  process.  It  is  true, 
of  course,  that  for  a  race  of  rational  and  self-conscious 
beings  war  is  absurd  at  its  best.  The  consciousness  of 
the  civilized  world  is  coming  rapidly  to  this  conviction. 
But  for  a  race  of  any  consciousness  whatever  there  are 
social  problems  to  be  solved;  and  for  imperfectly  con- 
scious beings,  such  as  ourselves,  war  is  often  the  only 
visible  solution.  This  being  the  case,  it  is  precisely 
logical  to  define  and  locate  the  issue  and  to  make  the 
inevitable  bloodshed  an  effective  solution  of  the  special 


The  Conscious  Society  121 

problem  in  question.  Such  is  the  distinctive  result  of 
civilized  war  and  of  the  diplomacy  by  which  it  is  regu- 
lated. And  as  such  I  say  that,  in  spite  of  inherent 
absurdities,  it  is  a  positively  logical  process.  More  and 
more  is  it  true  that  we  go  to  war  for  a  definite  purpose, 
and  not  just  because  we  feel  like  fighting.  This  definite- 
ness  of  purpose  converts  even  the  clash  of  national 
interests  into  a  more  distinctively  social  adjustment. 
And  it  is  only  the  lack  of  perfect  definiteness  that  makes 
war  still  a  necessity. 

So  of  the  economic  warfare,  so-called.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  the  term  " warfare"  is  here  a  metaphor; 
and  we  should  be  careful  about  using  metaphors  without 
soberly  noting  the  difference.  No  doubt  the  economic 
struggle  is  painful  enough,  yet  I  fancy  there  are  few 
of  us  who,  if  the  alternatives  were  offered,  would  not 
prefer  the  economic  pains  to  those  inflicted  by  steel  and 
lead.  And  on  the  other  hand,  the  competitive  process, 
like  that  of  war,  has  its  distinctly  logical  side.  How 
else  should  we  measure  the  utility  of  economic  produc- 
tions or  services  except  by  a  comparison  of  the  results 
of  those  who  are  endeavoring  each  to  do  his  best,  —  and 
therefore  each  to  do  better  than  his  neighbor?  This 
is  a  question  which  the  opponents  of  competition  have 
still  successfully  to  answer.  But  intelligent  competition, 
like  intelligent  war,  is  an  attempt  to  direct  competi- 
tion toward  these  definitely  serviceable  ends.  The  pres- 
ent agitation  against  monopolistic  restraint  of  trade  is 
simply  a  further  attempt  to  work  out  a  "fairer,"  or 
more  logical  form  of  competition. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  condition  of  labor.  It  is 
mere  rhetoric  to  speak  of  the  modern  labor-system  as 
only  a  new  form  of  slavery.  Narrow  as  the  opportuni- 
ties of  the  laborer  may  now  be,  they  are  not  so  narrow 


122  The  Conscious  Individual 

as  in  former  times.  Nor  is  he  so  close  to  the  grinding 
alternative  of  work  or  starve.  What  has  come  about 
is  not  a  narrowing  of  the  conditions,  but  a  consciousness 
of  their  narrowness,  which,  following  the  nature  of  con- 
sciousness, is  operating  rapidly  to  render  this  narrowness 
less  of  a  fact.  The  laboring  man  may  declaim  bitterly 
against  the  slavery  of  his  conditions,  but  the  very  fact 
of  his  declamation  shows  that  his  mental  attitude  has 
ceased  to  be  that  of  a  slave.  I  hold,  then,  that  in  all  the 
relations  of  life  it  is  better  to  know  than  not  to  know, 
better  to  face  an  issue  than  to  bear  burdens  uncon- 
sciously. The  man  who  acts  with  a  clear  consciousness 
of  what  he  is  doing  is  in  every  respect  a  freer  man  and 
a  more  profitable  associate;  and  a  society  which  has 
become  conscious  of  its  structure  through  culture  and 
education  is  in  every  respect  a  freer  social  order. 

§  77.  So  much  for  the  economic  and  utilitarian  side 
of  the  social  relation.  For  the  purposes  of  our  argument 
this  side  is  clearly  important.  For  those  who  hold  the 
doctrine  of  every  man  for  himself  and  the  devil  take 
the  hindmost  (unintelligent  individualism)  and  those 
who  hold  the  opposite  doctrine  of  self-sacrifice  for  the 
common  good  equally  presuppose  that  the  world  in 
which  we  live  is  economically  a  world  of  definitely  fixed 
dimensions,  so  that  the  expansion  of  your  being  is  bound 
to  involve  a  contraction  of  mine.  If  our  argument  has 
shown  anything  it  has  shown  that  through  the  extension 
of  his  social  relations  the  individual  becomes,  not  less, 
but  more  of  an  individual,  and  acquires  a  greater  individ- 
ual freedom.  And  this  in  no  merely  Pickwickian  sense. 
The  individual  does  not  merely  "  identify  himself  with 
his  group"  or  "make  their  interests  his  own."  He  also 
differentiates  himself;  and  through  this  identification 
and  differentiation  of  interests  he  creates  more  room 


The  Conscious  Society  123 

in  his  world  and  secures,  both  for  himself  and  for  others, 
in  a  most  practical  and  economic  sense,  a  greater  per- 
sonal freedom.  Yet,  after  all,  it  is  the  personal  side  of 
the  social  relation  that  reveals  more  clearly  its  typical 
form  and  meaning.  And  for  this  we  must  .turn  to  those 
relations  where  the  personal  aspect  is  prominent.  As  I 
have  pointed  out,  every  social  relation  is  so  far  a  per- 
sonal relation.  And  among  the  distinctively  personal 
relations  I  include  those  formed  through  the  medium  of 
literature  and  art.  The  relations  between  the  poet,  or 
the  painter,  or  the  composer,  and  his  appreciative 
public  are  of  an  essentially  personal  character  even 
though  the  conditions  interfere  with  perfect  mutuality 
of  response.  A  personal  relation  is  formed  whenever 
a  serious  expression  of  meaning  meets  an  intelligent 
mind. 

§  78.  Now,  in  these  personal  relations,  it  is  clearly 
absurd  to  conceive  of  your  Other,  as  a  being  whose 
otherness  is  necessarily  hostile  to  yourself,  as  one  whose 
individual  significance  creates  for  you  an  offensive  and 
invidious  distinction.  No  doubt  it  seems  so  to  the  un- 
cultivated. For  them  every  departure  from  the  com- 
mon and  conventional  is  an  assertion  of  superiority. 
And  probably  none  of  us  is  so  open-minded  as  not  to 
feel  a  certain  irritation  and  repugnance  upon  first  con- 
tact with  a  strange  point  of  view.  Yet  consider,  for 
example,  your  world  of  authors.  Put  together  such 
names,  say,  as  those  of  Carlyle  and  Spencer,  Tennyson 
and  Whitman,  Jane  Austen,  Balzac  and  Daudet, 
Thackeray,  George  Eliot  and  Anatole  France,  Tour- 
genieff  and  Schiller,  Goethe  and  Tolstoi.  For  men  of 
any  cultivation  this  would  be  a  relatively  popular  list. 
Yet  what  diverse  personalities!  But  of  what  earthly 
use  would  they  be  to  us  if  they  all  conformed  to  the 


124  The  Conscious  Individual 

same  type  or  expressed  the  same  point  of  view,  in 
philosophy,  in  art,  or  in  general  outlook  upon  life? 
And  what  could  they  say  to  us  if  they  simply  repeated 
what  we  already  recognize  as  natural  or  proper  or  right? 
In  these  regions  it  is  just  the  difference  of  personality 
that  makes  the  social  relation  worth  while.  And  any 
difference  is  welcome  if  it  rest  upon  thoughtful  and 
intelligent  ground.  All  that  we  ask  is  that  it  be  the  ex- 
pression of  a  genuine  self-consciousness  and  not  the 
sham  individuality  of  the  freak  and  the  fool.  So  of  the 
more  intimate  circle.  Surely  no  intelligent  man  desires 
his  wife  to  be  a  copy  of  himself,  much  less  that  she  have 
no  ideas  of  her  own.  What  is  required  is  not  so  much  a 
unanimity  of  taste  as  a  mutually  intelligent  sympathy. 
Perhaps  he  has  a  most  beloved  son,  a  constant  source 
of  wonder  and  delight,  —  but  hardly  because  he  is  a 
"chip  of  the  old  block."  Just  as  little  can  he  endure 
to  have  it  said  either  that  he  is  a  copy  of  his  friends  or 
that  they  are  a  copy  of  him,  —  or  again  that  they  are 
"birds  of  a  feather."  In  all  these  personal  relations  the 
social  situation,  so  far  from  presenting  any  necessary 
incompatibility  between  social  harmony  and  individual 
independence  of  thought  and  character,  shows  us  just  the 
reverse,  the  indispensability  of  difference  for  any  truly 
social  life.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  more  pronounced 
differences  will  present  a  more  complex  and  difficult 
problem  of  adjustment.  I  do  not  deny  that  an  ideally 
submistive  wife,  or  for  that  matter,  husband,  will  facili- 
tate the  maintenance  of  family  peace.  But  provided  an 
intimacy  of  mutual  understanding  has  once  been  estab- 
lished, the  very  individuality  of  your  fellow  makes  him 
a  more  precious  and  delightful  object  and  the  harmony 
of  relations  a  richer  and  more  positively  social  fact. 
§  79.  It  will  be  worth  while  to  glance  briefly  at  some 


The  Conscious  Society  12$ 

of  the  aspects  of  this  personal  relation.  In  the  first  place, 
in  this  even  more  than  in  the  economic  relation,  your 
fellow  by  his  very  difference  opens  the  way  to  a  larger 
expansion  of  yourself.  Here  I  have  in  mind  an  inter- 
change, not  merely  of  useful  and  interesting  information, 
but  of  things  of  more  intimate  importance.  Each  of  us 
is  aware  of  an  immensely  more  comprehensive  self  than 
he  is  able  to  express  in  overt  activity.  As  the  range  of 
immediate  vision  is  limited  by  the  position  and  struc- 
ture of  the  eye,  so  is  our  capacity  for  self-realization 
limited  by  the  narrowness  of  our  attention.  We  can 
grasp  only  a  small  portion  of  our  world  in  a  single  act 
of  thought.  Accordingly,  in  order  that  we  may  have 
the  satisfaction  of  doing  something  thoroughly  and  well, 
we  specialize  along  the  line  of  our  more  important 
interests,  leaving  the  rest  of  our  nature  unsatisfied  and 
known  to  us  chiefly  as  a  field  of  undeveloped  possibility. 
Yet  not  quite  so.  For  when  you  hear  a  symphony  of 
Beethoven  or  Tschaikowski,  or  read  a  novel  of  Tour- 
genieff,  or  something  of  Anatole  France,  these  remoter 
regions  of  your  nature  are  roused  into  actuality.  You 
feel,  if  you  would  only  confess  it,  that  you,  too,  might 
thus  have  expressed  yourself  if  your  life  had  not  been 
absorbed  in  other  things.  It  has  been  said,  indeed,  that 
every  man  has  one  novel  in  him,  and  under  a  pledge  of 
secrecy  most  men  would  probably  admit  it.  It  is  not 
a  question  here  of  a  mechanical  instinct  of  imitation. 
The  personal  response  to  the  work  of  art  awakens  the 
artist  in  yourself;  otherwise  you  would  never  respond. 
It  is  not  his  novel  that  you  wish  to  write,  or  would  be 
happy  to  have  written;  for  no  one  else  could  exactly 
express  your  own  outlook  upon  life.  Nor,  in  the  most 
delighted  appreciation  of  the  work  before  you,  are  you 
merely  receptive.  For  an  exchange  of  ideas  is  very 


126  The  Conscious  Individual 

different  from  an  exchange  of  goods.  In  the  case  of 
ideas  what  is  received  never  is,  or  can  be,  just  what  is 
given.  Every  idea  that  you  receive  is  so  far  your  idea. 
Every  act  of  appreciation  is  also  an  act  of  creation;  and 
the  more  lively  your  appreciation,  the  more  positive 
your  critical  reaction.  The  more  intelligent  your  enjoy- 
ment, the  more  it  is  spontaneously  creative.  Contact 
with  your  fellow  —  through  the  work  of  art  or  in  friendly 
intercourse  —  simply  rouses  to  activity  and  self-con- 
sciousness the  remoter  aspects  of  yourself. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  not  only  does  this  intercourse 
with  others  broaden  the  range  of  your  self-consciousness, 
it  also  furnishes  the  basis  of  contrast  through  which  you 
become  aware  of  yourself,  and  define  yourself,  and  are 
enabled  to  assert  yourself  as  a  distinct  and  unique 
individual.  A  young  man  goes  forth  into  the  world  and 
finds,  not  merely  a  world  of  grown  men,  but  himself  as 
a  grown  man  among  them.  Through  intercourse  with 
men  of  maturity  and  force  he  for  the  first  time,  as  we 
say,  "finds  himself."  In  measuring  himself  with  them, 
and  in  passing  judgment  upon  them,  he  finds  out  where 
he  himself  stands  and  what  he  is  able  to  do.  He  is  thus 
enabled  to  assert  himself  as  a  member  of  society,  an 
individual  among  other  individuals,  holding  a  position 
which  belongs  to  him  and  to  him  alone.  But  all  this 
is  a  question  of  the  extent  to  which  the  relation  is  a  con- 
scious relation,  to  which  he  approaches  the  world  in 
the  attitude  of  a  self-conscious  and  responsible  agent, 
determined  to  know  where  he  stands.  Not  every  man 
who  enters  the  world  finds  either  a  world  or  himself. 
But  so  far  as  you  find  yourself  in  a  world  of  significant 
men,  you  find  yourself  a  significant  man  with  significantly 
personal  ends.  Each  significant  individual  in  your 
world  then  furnishes  a  special  ground  of  contrast  by 


The  Conscious  Society  127 

virtue  of  which  you  find  a  special  character  in  yourself, 
a  new  distinction  between  yourself  and  others,  and 
become  at  once  a  richer  and  more  unique  personality. 
In  this  aspect  of  the  personal  relation  lies,  in  last  analysis, 
its  personal  value  and  importance.  The  bare  presence 
of  splendid  individuals  in  your  world  means  nothing 
to  you.  As  a  self-conscious  and  responsible  agent  you 
cannot  express  yourself  in  the  worship  of  others,  how- 
ever admirable  and  impressive.  For  you  the  value  of 
their  personality  lies  in  the  fact  of  the  social  relation,  — 
that  through  intercourse  with  them  you  also  become  a 
significant  individual  and  secure  a  position  for  yourself 
in  the  aristocratic  circle  of  significant  and  free  beings. 

And  yet,  or  perhaps,  therefore  —  my  third  and  last 
point  —  this  cannot  mean  that  our  fellows  are  to  be 
regarded  as  mere  means  in  relation  to  ourselves  as  ends, 
—  as  grindstones,  so  to  speak,  for  the  sharpening  of 
our  own  individuality.  This  view  of  the  matter  is 
forbidden  by  the  nature  of  social  relation.  For  you 
and  your  fellow  are  parties  to  a  social  distinction.  If 
he  is  a  mere  negative,  can  you,  the  other  party,  be  a 
positive  reality?  If  his  point  of  view  is  meaningless 
and  his  ideals  valueless,  can  yours  be  positively  signifi- 
cant? Or,  again,  if  he  is  simply  wrong,  can  you  give 
a  positive  meaning  to  your  right?  Here  we  encounter 
one  of  the  most  fundamental  of  metaphysical  problems: 
if  an  individual  truth  or  reality  implies  and  necessitates 
its  opposite,  must  not  the  opposite  have  an  equal  justi- 
fication with  itself?  Yet,  in  adopting  a  point  of  view 
as  your  own  in  contrast  to  that  of  another,  do  you  not 
banish  your  other  to  the  outer  darkness  of  negation 
and  falsehood?  It  is  clear  that  the  problem  has  an 
intimate  bearing  on  the  question  of  social  relations,  and 
it  was  with  this  very  consideration  in  mind  —  that  every 


128  The  Conscious  Individual 

individual  being  implies  an  Other  —  that  Hegel  denied 
any  significance  to  the  individual  as  such  and  made  him 
a  feature  of  merely  passing  importance  in  the  larger 
social  whole.  We  may  not  pause  to  consider  the  prob- 
lem in  its  broader  aspects.  All  that  I  suggest  is  that  we 
recall  once  more  the  difference  between  mechanical  and 
conscious  reality.  From  a  mechanical  standpoint  it  is 
undoubtedly  true  that  an  assertion  of  your  own  reality 
and  importance  implies  the  minor  importance  of  your 
Other.  For  here  the  underlying  criterion  is  spatial, 
and  spatial  sizes  and  importances  are  of  necessity 
mutually  invidious.  But  nothing  of  the  sort  applies  to 
the  relations  of  conscious  agents.  My  worth  does  not 
diminish  yours,  nor  does  our  mutual  reliance  diminish 
in  the  least  our  individual  significance.  Rather,  as  I 
have  sought  to  show,  the  very  differentia  of  the  conscious 
relation  is  that  it  makes  the  individual  independent 
through  relationship  —  which  from  a  mechanical  stand- 
point would  be  quite  paradoxical. 

And  in  point  of  fact  the  relations  of  men  in  the 
higher  cultural  regions  tend  to  assume  precisely  this 
character.  In  philosophy,  in  literary  criticism  and  in 
art,  the  tendency  of  intelligent  criticism  is  to  reject 
the  simple  categories  of  true  and  false,  right  and  wrong, 
beautiful  and  ugly,  and  not  so  much  to  condemn  a  point 
of  view  because  it  is  the  opposite  of  your  own  as  to  mark 
and  stress  its  otherness.  For  my  own  part  I  cannot 
conceive  of  a  student  of  philosophy  who  should  be  con- 
tent to  separate  all  the  splendid  names  in  the  history 
of  his  subject  into  groups  of  true  and  false.  To  me, 
indeed,  the  fascination  of  the  study  lies  in  assuming  them 
all  to  be  true;  and  then  in  asking  from  what  intelligible 
standpoint,  from  what  angle  of  personal  character,  each 
came  to  say  just  what  he  did.  And  I  find  myself  often 


The  Conscious  Society  129 

in  most  cordial  appreciation  of  those  whose  point  of 
view  is  most  removed  from  my  own.  So,  in  personal 
intercourse,  it  may  well  happen  that  the  man  for  whom 
you  have  the  heartiest  affection  is  just  he  who  takes 
issue  with  you  in  the  most  uncompromising  way;  so 
that,  in  Hegelian  fashion,  the  very  sharpness  of  con- 
tradiction breeds  sympathy.  Yet  this  is  not  to  reject 
as  meaningless  the  category  of  true  and  false.  For  that 
shallow  and  sceptical  generosity  which  holds  that  any 
man's  view  is  as  good  as  any  other's  I  have  no  sympathy 
whatever.  Not  every  man  who  chances  to  assert  him- 
self is  to  be  admitted  to  rational  society.  Neither  is 
every  expression  of  personal  opinion  to  be  recognized 
as  a  contribution  to  truth;  but  only  that  which  shows 
itself  to  be  the  serious  and  well-considered  expression 
of  a  genuine  personal  meaning. 

With  this  I  conclude  the  argument  of  this  Second 
Lecture.  There  remains,  indeed,  a  further  point,  —  to 
show,  namely,  that  for  a  conscious  agent,  and  more 
especially  for  a  society  of  conscious  agents,  the  natural 
environment  is  so  far  an  elastic  quantity.  But  I  shall 
offer  no  special  argument  for  this  point,  partly  because 
it  is  already  more  or  less  covered  in  the  general  argument 
for  the  efficiency  of  consciousness,  and  partly  because 
any  further  argument  that  our  time  would  admit  of  has 
been  given  in  the  last  section  of  the  First  Lecture.  I  can 
only  repeat  the  two  main  points;  first  the  a  priori  argu- 
ment that,  if  consciousness  be  conceived  to  have  any 
efficiency  whatever,  if  it  be  in  any  way  concerned  with 
human  action,  the  utility  and  serviceability  of  the  mate- 
rial world  must  of  necessity  be  conceived  as  directly 
coordinate  with  the  development  of  the  consciousness 
that  deals  with  it;  and  secondly  the  a  posteriori  argu- 
9 


130  The  Conscious  Individual 

ment  that,  as  a  matter  of  historical  fact,  the  avail- 
ability of  nature  for  our  uses  has  constantly  increased 
with  further  development  of  intelligence;  and  this  in 
spite  of  many  scientific  predictions  of  a  proximate  ulti- 
mate limit.  To  be  sure  this  may  all  be  and  yet  condi- 
tions may  arise  for  which  even  the  combined  human 
intelligence  will  be  totally  unprepared.  It  is  possible, 
for  example,  that  the  earth  may  be  suddenly  destroyed 
by  collision  with  a  heavenly  body.  But  such  considera- 
tions are  so  remote  as  hardly  to  bear  upon  the  question 
of  social  relations.  From  our  point  of  view  it  will  be 
sufficient  to  note  that,  within  the  range  of  our  field  of 
consideration,  —  within  the  range,  say,  of  the  astronomi- 
cal present,  so  far  as  that  is  clear  —  the  natural  environ- 
ment is  still  an  indefinitely  elastic  quantity  depending 
for  its  value  to  us  upon  the  degree  of  our  intelligence. 

§  80.  To  review  our  argument,  —  through  an  analysis 
of  the  nature  of  consciousness  I  have  endeavored  to 
show,  first,  that  the  individual,  so  far  as  he  is  conscious 
of  himself,  is  a  free  agent,  capable  of  realizing  ends  of 
his  own  and  no  longer  subject  to  Nature's  laws;  secondly, 
that  a  society  of  conscious  beings  is  so  far  a  society  of 
free  beings,  mutually  free,  capable  of  realizing  mutually 
agreed  upon  ends,  and  no  longer  subject  to  the  impersonal 
laws  either  of  economics  or  of  physical  Nature.  On  the 
other  hand  I  have  shown  that  so  far  as  men  are  not  con- 
scious, and  are  not  conscious  of  their  mutual  relations, 
their  behavior  is  a  matter  strictly  of  impersonal  natural 
law.  And  as  I  have  also  shown,  the  unconscious  side 
covers  in  varying  degree  a  large  part  of  human  life. 
Accordingly,  in  the  doctrine  of  these  lectures  you  will 
discern  no  undiscriminating  optimism.  Any  philosophy 
that  undertakes  to  vindicate  the  efficiency  of  conscious- 
ness presupposes,  indeed,  an  optimistic  motive;  so  much 


The  Conscious  Society  131 

I  freely  admit.  Yet  because  the  problem  is  located 
within  the  conscious  self  it  is  not  thereby  solved.  As 
long  ago  as  Socrates  it  was  recognized  that  the  most 
difficult  problem  of  life  is  to  know  yourself.  For  us  it 
is  the  whole  problem.  Yet  to  have  located  the  problem 
at  this  point  is,  as  I  conceive,  a  great  gain.  For  it  means 
that  the  problem  is  theoretically  soluble  and  it  points 
the  direction  of  the  solution.  For  our  special  purpose 
it  means  that  there  is  no  inherent  contradiction  between 
social  welfare  and  individual  freedom;  and  therefore 
that  the  duty  of  self-sacrifice  for  the  common  good  is 
not  merely  paradoxical,  but  unintelligent.  Every  self- 
conscious  agent  has,  in  the  nature  of  things,  a  right  to 
complete  self-realization.  And  as  rational  beings  we 
are  bound  to  assume  that  every  social  problem  can  be 
completely  solved  by  careful  analysis  and  adjustment 
of  individual  aims.  Such  adjustment  will  involve  proxi- 
mately  a  detailed  study  of  each  problem  presented,  but 
ulteriorly  something  more  comprehensive  and  perma- 
nently effective,  namely,  that  general  state  of  mutual 
understanding  which  is  the  product  of  an  enlightened 
culture.  And  this  perhaps  I  may  leave  with  you  as  the 
most  important  general  consequence  of  our  view.  If 
consciousness  is  real  and  efficient,  these  higher  aspects 
of  mind  are  no  mere  by-product  of  evolution,  no  mere 
adornment  of  life,  but  the  very  substance  of  life  and  the 
force  by  which  it  grows.  To  them,  therefore,  in  their 
extension  and  development,  we  must  look  for  any  general 
progress  in  the  direction  of  a  more  perfect  social  adjust- 
ment, —  to  the  physical  and  social  sciences  as  furnish- 
ing the  ways  and  means,  but  not  less  to  the  more  liberal 
pursuits  of  philosophy,  literature,  and  art,  in  which, 
most  of  all,  men  are  brought  into  communication  on 
their  finer  and  more  personal  side. 


LECTURE   III 
INDIVIDUALITY  AND  SOCIAL  UNITY 


LECTURE  III 

INDIVIDUALITY  AND  SOCIAL  UNITY 
I  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

Our  Second  Lecture  has  endeavored  to  show  that  the 
presence  of  consciousness  in  human  life  creates,  in  cor- 
responding measure,  both  individual  worth  and  freedom 
and  harmonious  social  adjustment.  Consciousness,  in- 
dividual freedom,  social  unity,  —  my  thesis  is  that  these 
three  conceptions,  or  factors  of  human  life,  each  imply- 
ing variations  of  degree,  are  strictly  coordinate.  And 
from  this  we  draw  the  conclusion  that  the  popular  moral 
ideal  of  self-sacrifice  for  the  common  good  is  without 
substantial  basis. 

In  this  lecture  we  shall  be  concerned,  on  the  positive 
side,  with  this  conclusion.  The  point  of  view  of  the 
Second  Lecture  was  mainly  psychological;  here  it  will 
be  mainly  ethical.  Our  chief  purpose,  as  indicated  in 
the  title,  is  to  inquire  into  the  relations  of  individuality 
and  social  unity  from  the  standpoint  of  moral  and 
esthetic  valuation.  Our  aspiration  is  for  social  unity. 
But  what  kind  of  unity?  Is  it  a  unity  without  differ- 
ence? Or  a  unity  that  endures  difference?  Or  a  unity 
of  which  difference  is  a  coordinately  necessary  feature? 
Which  of  these  conceptions  of  unity  represents  for  us 
the  ideally  good  and  beautiful?  But  this  question 
involves  us  in  certain  others.  The  validity  of  moral 
ideals  is  associated  in  many  minds  with  the  question  of 
origin  and  original  intent  and  may  no  doubt  be  properly 


136  Individuality  and  Unity 

related  to  the  motives  at  work  in  the  process  of  develop- 
ment. And  since  most  anti-individualistic  theories  rest 
upon  the  assumed  priority  of  the  social  impulses,  it  is 
important  for  us  to  see  what  the  real  relations  are. 
Then  there  is  the  further  question:  assuming  that  a  unity 
of  mutual  advantage  is  ideally  beautiful,  is  it  moral? 
Can  an  act  which  involves  no  sacrifice  of  self  be  conceived 
as  meritorious?  I  shall  take  up  these  questions  in  the 
following  order:  first,  the  position  of  the  individual  in 
the  process  of  social  and  moral  evolution;  secondly, 
his  position  in  the  ideal  social  unity;  and  thirdly,  the 
question  of  virtue  and  self-sacrifice. 

First,  then,  the  position  of  the  individual  in  the  process 
of  social  development.  Is  he  in  any  sense  a  posterior  or 
subordinate  term  in  a  primarily  " social"  process?  This 
question,  already  dealt  with  by  implication,  we  have  now 
to  take  up  from  a  standpoint  explicitly  genetic. 

§  81.  At  the  beginning  of  our  First  Lecture  I  dwelt 
upon  the  tendency  of  later  nineteenth-century  thought 
to  lay  the  burden  of  emphasis  upon  the  social  order. 
It  is  of  course  quite  to  be  expected  that  a  view  which 
locates  in  the  social  the  rational  ground  of  things  should 
find  there  also  their  origin  and  historical  first  cause. 
And  so  we  find  in  the  later  nineteenth  century  a  theory 
of  origins  which  exactly  reverses  that  of  a  century  before. 
In  the  thought  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  first  state 
of  man,  called  "the  state  of  nature,"  was  assumed  to  be 
one  of  absolute  individual  independence,  and  society 
was  the  result  of  a  contract  formed,  either  expressly 
or  by  implication,  between  free  individuals.  In  the 
later  theory  society  comes  first.  Historical  criticism 
had  effectively  disposed  of  the  state  of  nature.  It  is 
clear  that  human  life  must  always  have  been  a  com- 
munity life.  And  a  study  of  the  facts  of  primitive  life 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  137 

shows  the  individuals  to  be  distributed  in  small  groups, 
or  clans,  of  apparently  marked  solidarity.  From  this 
the  conclusion  is  drawn  —  illogically,  and  as  we  shall  see 
erroneously  —  that  the  primitive  impulses  of  men  are 
distinctively  "social."  That  is  to  say,  the  first  and 
strongest  impulse  of  the  man  is  for  the  welfare  of  his 
group.  Considerations  affecting  his  own  welfare  are 
relatively  weak  and  unimportant.  Indeed,  according  to 
the  common  view  of  primitive  life,  the  individual  was 
almost  without  ends  of  his  own,  and  had  scarcely  any 
individual  self -consciousness.  His  life  was  practically 
absorbed  in  that  of  the  clan,  the  distinction  of  individual 
aims  being  a  later  and  decadent  development. 

§  82.  The  history  of  the  race  is  repeated  in  the  individ- 
ual. According  to  the  view  before  us,  here  too,  in  the 
individual  of  today,  the  social  is  genetically  prior  to  the 
individual.  From  an  external  standpoint  the  primi- 
tive impulses  of  the  child  may  be  derived  from  two 
sources,  heredity  and  environment.  To  the  agent  him- 
self, indeed,  the  hereditary  impulses  appear  to  repre- 
sent something  individual,  —  a  force  set  over  against  the 
influences  of  his  social  environment.  But  trace  them 
to  their  source,  and  you  will  find  that  both  are  equally 
"social."  For  the  individual  is  a  composite  result.  He 
is  the  child,  not  of  individuals,  but  of  the  race.  And 
among  his  hereditary  impulses  the  strongest  —  those 
which  rest  upon  the  broadest  foundations  of  heredity, 
those,  too,  which  are  best  preserved  by  natural  selection 
—  are  the  impulses  common  to  the  race;  and  these,  as  a 
result  of  the  selective  process,  are  the  impulses  which 
represent  the  most  perfect  social  adjustments.  Hence, 
it  follows  that  the  individual  is  predisposed  by  heredity 
to  the  common  good.  He  is  so  constructed  at  the  outset 
as  to  find  in  this  his  chief  satisfaction. 


138  Individuality  and  Unity 

The  same  account  is  given  from  the  standpoint  of 
introspective  psychology.  According  to  the  view  before 
us  the  child's  first  and  most  natural  impulse  is  toward 
imitation.  As  stated  by  Professor  Royce,1  the  child 
knows  others  before  he  knows  himself;  and  he  knows 
himself,  it  would  seem,  chiefly  as  a  selection  from  what 
the  others  offer  him.  To  be  sure,  the  process  of  selec- 
tion implies  that  beside  the  tendency  to  imitation  there 
is  a  tendency  to  opposition,2  but  of  the  two  the  imitative 
tendency  is  earlier  and  more  significant.  In  other  words, 
the  social  consciousness  comes  first,  the  individual  self- 
consciousness  comes  later.  A  similar  view  is  expressed 
by  Professor  Dewey3  when  he  says  that  the  primitive 
consciousness  of  the  child  is  a  consciousness  of  objects, 
as  distinct  from  a  consciousness  of  self,  or  personal  feel- 
ing, and  that  the  primary  aims  of  the  child  are  for  objec- 
tive results.  Here  he  follows  Professor  James'  theory 
of  instinct.  The  meaning  of  James'  theory  will  be  clear 
if  we  note  its  contrast  to  the  hedonistic  or  pleasure- 
theory.  According  to  hedonism  all  action  is  stimulated 
by  a  desire  for  pleasure,  i.e.,  for  a  pleasant  feeling,  which 
in  last  analysis  is  the  pleasure  of  the  agent  himself;  and 
this  motive  is  held  to  be  specially  clear  and  obvious  in 
the  early  stages  of  life,  both  of  the  child  and  of  the  race. 
Hence,  for  hedonism,  the  primary  and  original  human 
impulses  are  exclusively  egoistic.  As  against  this  view 
Professor  James  holds  that  all  human  action  has  its 

1  "The  child  is  in  general  conscious  of  what  expresses  the  life  of  some- 
body else,  before  he  is  conscious  of  himself.  And  his  self-consciousness, 
as  it  grows,  feeds  upon  social  models,  so  that  at  every  stage  of  his  awaken- 
ing life  his  consciousness  of  the  Alter  is  a  step  in  advance  of  his  con- 
sciousness of  the  Ego."  The  World  and  the  Individual.  Second  Series, 
p.  261. 

*  Outlines  of  Psychology,  Chap.  XIII. 

3  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  p.  375. 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  139 

ground  in  certain  hereditary  tendencies  which  we  call 
instincts.  Now  an  instinct,  so  far  from  aiming  at  any 
general  result,  such  as  pleasure  or  self-satisfaction,  is  a 
specific  tendency  to  deal  with  a  specific  object  in  a 
specific  way,  its  direction  being  fixed  by  paths  already 
established  by  heredity  in  the  nervous  system.  When, 
therefore,  the  instinct  operates  in  the  life  of  the  child  — 
when,  for  example,  he  grasps  at  a  bright  object  —  he  is 
not  thinking  of  the  attainment  of  pleasure;  his  imme- 
diate desire  is  for  the  object.  In  other  words,  the  atti- 
tude of  the  naive  mind  is  thoroughly  impersonal  and 
disinterested.  Only  the  sophisticated  mind,  which  has 
tasted  and  compared  the  enjoyments  afforded  by  various 
objects,  can  make  personal  feeling  the  end.  This  is  the 
ground,  then,  upon  which  Professor  Dewey  holds  that 
human  impulses  are  fundamentally  objective  and  social. 
The  natural  and  instinctive  —  hence,  the  right  and 
proper  —  end  of  our  action  is  not  personal  satisfaction 
but  the  attainment  of  those  objective  ends  which  are 
common  to  the  race,  and  to  which  we  are  committed  by 
the  structure  of  our  nervous  system. 

So  much  for  the  psychology  of  the  view  in  question. 
The  meaning  of  it  all  is  that,  both  in  the  individual  and 
in  the  race,  the  development  of  ideas  and  of  ends  is 
from  the  communistic  to  the  individualistic,  from  the 
altruistic  to  the  egoistic.  The  natural  state  of  man  is 
"social,"  -  a  state  of  indistinguishable  identity  of  aims, 
—  the  distinction  of  individual  aims  being  a  product 
of  culture.  And  to  this  natural  state  of  man  we  must 
look  for  an  authoritative  statement  of  his  moral  and 
social  ideals. 

§  83.  For  our  purpose  this  is  highly  important.  If 
we  are  to  make  the  meaning  of  our  individualism  clear 
we  must  place  it  against  the  background  of  current 


140  Individuality  and  Unity 

thought  and  define  its  meaning  by  contrast.  And  noth- 
ing figures  so  largely  in  current  thought  as  the  matter 
of  mental  development.  I  think,  therefore,  that  instead 
of  dealing  with  a  view  which  is  in  the  air,  but  which  in  all 
its  aspects  belongs  to  no  one  in  particular,  we  shall  do 
well  to  take  up  a  typical  expression  of  it  and  look  at  this 
somewhat  in  detail,  —  after  which  we  shall  be  in  a  posi- 
tion, in  the  next  division  of  this  lecture,  to  state  the 
formal  principles  of  our  individualism.  For  this  pur- 
pose I  select  the  view  expressed  in  the  "Ethics"  of 
Professors  Dewey  and  Tufts,  —  partly  because  it  repre- 
sents the  most  recent  and  the  most  explicit  considera- 
tion of  the  moral  problem  from  a  social  standpoint,  and 
partly  because  it  furnishes  the  best  illustration  of  the 
ingrained  exaggeration  of  the  social  in  the  present  state 
of  thought.  For  after  all  no  such  exaggeration  is  in- 
tended, it  being  the  purpose  of  the  authors  to  formulate 
a  "moral  democracy,"  a  name  I  should  apply  to  this 
formulation  of  my  own. 

In  Part  I,  for  which  Professor  Tufts  is  mainly  respon- 
sible, you  will  find  a  very  interesting  summary  of  the 
history  of  moral  ideas.  The  point  of  emphasis  here  is  the 
solidarity  of  the  primitive  clan.  This,  however,  did  not 
exclude  the  consciousness  of  individual  ends,  though  these 
are  assumed  to  have  played  a  subordinate  part.  The 
order  of  development  is  then  stated  as  a  development,  on 
one  side  at  least,  toward  individualism.  Is  this  individ- 
ualism a  moral  advance?  Professor  Tufts'  answer  is 
clear:  in  some  sort  of  individualism  lies  the  very  essence 
of  morality.  Indeed,  the  beginning  of  morality  in  the 
proper  sense  is  found  in  the  transition  from  "custom" 
(i.e.,  blind  acquiescence  in  group-standards)  to  "con- 
science," where  the  course  of  action  is  reflectively  and 
voluntarily  chosen.  But  what  is  the  gain  in  result? 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  141 

Is  the  world  made  better  in  a  utilitarian  sense  by  the 
exercise  of  choice?  Here  the  answer  is  qualified.  On 
the  whole,  no  doubt,  the  world  is  made  better  —  much 
better,  in  fact,  —  since  a  community  of  reflective  persons 
constitutes  a  much  more  efficient  social  organism.  But 
the  gain  is  not  without  a  loss.  We  have  lost  something 
of  fellowship  and  sympathy  in  social  life,  while  the  effect 
of  culture  upon  the  bad  man  is  to  render  him  only  more 
efficiently  vicious;  naive  selfishness  becomes  deliberate 
selfishness.4  Moreover,  every  step  in  advance,  both  in 
society  and  in  the  individual,  is  attended  by  some  retro- 
gression. But,  now,  once  more,  what  is  the  significance 
of  the  power  of  self-conscious  choice  for  the  individual? 
Does  the  revelation  hi  him  of  personal  ends  and  values 
and  the  power  to  realize  these  values,  —  does  this  make 
him  a  source  of  value  in  himself?  Does  it  endow  him 
with  the  right,  and  impose  upon  him  the  obligation,  of 
realizing  these  ends?  Does  it  say  to  him,  "There  is 
your  ideal.  Let  that  be  the  center  of  your  aims  and 
aspirations"?  To  this  question  Professor  Tufts  makes 
no  explicit  answer,  but  his  general  attitude  leaves  little 
room  for  doubt.  There  is  no  value  in  individual  ends  as 
such.  There  are  no  individual  rights  but  those  con- 
ferred by  society.  The  state  of  individual  moral  choice 
is,  indeed,  better  than  the  state  of  custom,  but  the 
"better"  is  measured  always  by  the  same  standard,  — 
by  the  importance  of  the  individual  to  society  and  not 
by  his  importance  to  himself. 

§  84.  Yet  you  will  find,  I  think,  a  greater  appreciation 
of  the  individual  in  Professor  Tufts'  historical  inter- 
pretation than  in  Professor  Dewey's  analysis  of  theory.5 
In  his  chapter  on  "Happiness  and  Social  Ends"  Pro- 

4  Chap.  IX,  or  in  particular  pp.  171  and  190,  also  pp.  75,  79. 
6  Part  II  of  the  Ethics. 


142  Individuality  and  Unity 

fessor  Dewey  raises  the  question,  How  are  you  to  obtain 
happiness,  i.e.,  to  satisfy  yourself,  in  the  ends  of  society? 
His  answer  is:  you  never  can  if  your  happiness  lies  in 
the  satisfaction  of  personal  aims.  Bentham  tried  to 
square  the  two,  i.e.,  self-interest  and  social  welfare,  by 
suggesting  various  arrangements,  political,  juridical,  eco- 
nomic, social,  for  making  unsocial  conduct  individually 
unprofitable  and  social  conduct  profitable.  But  all  such 
devices  are  temporary  in  their  effects  and  morally  per- 
nicious;6 and  the  identity  of  individual  and  social  wel- 
fare which  they  bring  about  is  accidental  and  artificial, 
—  a  mere  coincidence.  There  can  be  no  genuine  iden- 
tity of  interests  except  as  the  aims  of  the  individual  are 
inherently  and  intrinsically  social,  —  except  as  he  finds 
direct  satisfaction  in  the  common  good.  The  basis  for 
such  satisfaction  is  in  point  of  fact  already  present  in 
the  constitution  of  human  nature;  for  man  is  by  nature 
social.  "Our  social  affections  are  direct  interests  in  the 
well-being  of  others."  The  good  of  others  is  "an  intrin- 
sic constituent  factor"  of  our  own  happiness.7 

6  P.  302. 

7  These  quotations  occur  in  the  following  passage  on  page  294:  "The 
importance  of  this  changed  view  [Mill's  rather  than  Bentham's]  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  compels  us  to  regard  certain  desires,  affections,  and 
motives  as  inherently  worthy,  because  intrinsic  constituent  factors  of 
happiness.     Thus  it  enables  us  to  identify  our  happiness  with  the  happi- 
ness of  others,  to  find  our  good  in  their  good,  not  just  to  seek  their  happi- 
ness as,  upon  the  whole,  the  most  effective  way  of  securing  our  own. 
Our  social  affections  are  direct  interests  in  the  well-being  of  others; 
their  cultivation  and  expression  is  at  one  and  the  same  time  a  source 
of  good  to  ourselves,  and,  intelligently  guided,  to  others." 

Note  also  the  following: 

"It  could  only  be  by  accident  that  activities  of  a  large  number  of 
individuals  all  seeking  their  own  private  pleasures  should  coincide 
in  effecting  the  desirable  end  of  common  happiness."  P.  289.  (Would 
Professor  Dewey  say  that  the  success  of  a  stock-corporation  is  an  acci- 
dent? Yet  surely  the  desire  for  dividends  is  a  private  desire.) 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  143 

So  far,  then,  it  would  seem  that  there  is  a  preestab- 
lished  harmony  between  the  interests  of  the  individual 
and  those  of  society,  —  or  at  least  between  the  social 
interests  and  a  certain  part  of  the  individual  nature; 
for  it  is  recognized  that,  beside  the  social  instincts,  there 
are  others  exclusively  egoistic.  Rather  should  we  say, 
however,  that  there  is  a  preestablished  altruism;  for 
these  social  instincts  seem  to  be  aimed  exclusively  at 
the  good  of  others.  Hence,  since  "the  end,  the  right, 
and  the  only  right  end,  of  man,  lies  in  the  fullest  and 
freest  realization  of  powers  in  their  appropriate  objects,"8 
"it  is  a  question  of  finding  one's  good  in  the  good  of 
others";9  of  "finding  his  happiness  or  satisfaction  in 
these  ["associated"!  activities,  irrespective  of  the  pains 
and  pleasures  that  accrue";10  or,  once  more,  of  develop- 
ing "that  type  of  character  which  identifies  itself  with 
common  ends,  and  which  is  happy  in  these  ends  just 
because  it  has  made  them  its  own."  u 

"If  it  is  asked  why  the  individual  should  thus  regard  the  well-being 
of  others  as  an  inherent  object  of  desire,  there  is,  according  to  Mill,  [and 
also  according  to  Dewey]  but  one  answer:  We  cannot  think  of  ourselves 
except  as  to  some  extent  social  beings."  P.  294. 

"Unless  the  intrinsic  social  idea  be  emphasized,  any  association  of 
private  and  general  happiness  which  law  and  social  arrangements  can 
effect  will  be  external,  more  or  less  artificial  and  arbitrary,  and  hence 
dissoluble  either  by  intellectual  analysis,  or  by  the  intense  prepotency 
of  egoistic  desire."  P.  296.  On  the  next  page  he  says  that  the  value 
of  these  arrangements  to  the  individual  "is  not  that  they  are  contri- 
vances or  pieces  of  machinery  for  making  the  behavior  of  one  conduce 
more  or  less  automatically  to  the  happiness  of  others,  but  that  they  train 
and  exercise  the  individual  in  the  recognition  of  the  social  elements  of  his 
own  character." 

8  P.  300. 

"P.  295. 

10  P.  298. 

11  P.  302.    Note,  however,  that  "because  it  has  made  them  its  own" 
is  very  different  from  "because  they  are  inherent." 


144  Individuality  and  Unity 

In  a  later  chapter 12  the  emphasis  is  somewhat  shifted. 
You  will  now  find,  instead  of  an  inherent  interest  in 
the  good  of  others,  an  inherent  impersonality  and  dis- 
interestedness in  the  constitution  of  desire.  In  other 
words,  a  preestablished  altruism  of  social  instincts  is 
here  generalized  into  a  preestablished  and  exclusively 
outward  reference  of  all  instincts.  And  at  first  reading 
it  may  seem  that  we  have  misinterpreted  the  former 
chapter;  for  now  it  appears  that  "the  individual's  in- 
terests are  naturally  in  objective  ends  which  are  pri- 
marily neither  egoistic  nor  altruistic;  and  these  ends 
become  either  selfish  or  benevolent  at  special  crises,  at 
which  time  morality  consists  in  referring  them,  equally 
and  impartially  for  judgment,  to  a  situation  in  which 
the  interests  of  self  and  of  others  concerned  are  involved : 
to  a  common  good." l3  This  sounds  so  nearly  like  our 

"Chapter  XVIII  on  "The  Place  of  the  Self  in  the  Moral  Life." 
This  is  probably  the  most  important  statement  of  Professor  Dewey's 
theory  of  social  duties. 

13  P-  375-  But  what  is  the  common  good,  and  how  far  does  devotion 
to  the  common  good  differ  from  plain  altruism?  Suppose  that  the  good 
in  question  be  that  of  myself  and  nine  others,  (i)  If  the  proposed 
adjustment  gives  to  each  all  that  he  wants,  we  may  call  it,  for  con- 
venience, a  common  good,  and  in  working  for  it  I  should  be  working 
"equally  and  impartially"  for  myself  and  for  others.  Only,  in  that  case, 
there  would  be  no  special  reason  for  emphasizing  the  common  good,  since 
it  would  be  clearly  implied  in  my  own;  and  my  own  good  would  be  as 
effective  a  motive  as  any  other.  Suppose,  however,  that,  humanly 
speaking,  such  an  adjustment  is  impossible,  and  that  the  common  good 
demands. some  self-sacrifice.  What  is  the  meaning  now  of  "equal  and 
impartial"  consideration?  (2)  Does  it  mean  that  I  claim  the  same  for 
myself  that  I  allow  to  the  whole  group  of  others?  This  would  be  equal 
consideration  in  one  sense,  but  it  may  be  dismissed  as  without  warrant 
one  way  or  another.  (3)  Does  it  mean,  then,  that  "everybody  is  to 
count  for  one  and  nobody  for  more  than  one"  ?  This  is  what  it  usually 
means.  And  from  an  impersonal,  or  common,  standpoint  this  would 
be  equal  consideration,  but  from  my  own  standpoint  very  unequal. 


Evolution  of  the  Individual 

own  doctrine  that  criticism  may  seem  to  be  misdirected : 
desires  are  naturally  neither  egoistic  nor  altruistic  but 
become  so  by  virtue  of  a  conscious  distinction,  which 
then  demands  their  complete  coordination.  But  I  beg 
you  to  note  that  they  are  still  naturally  objective;  and 
under  this  apparently  neutral  designation  Professor 
Dewey  reinstates  the  predominant  altruism  of  the 
earlier  chapter,  at  the  same  time  adopting  from  Pro- 
fessor James  a  conception  of  the  conscious  side  of  instinct 
which  we  shall  see  to  be  erroneous. 

The  good,  he  says,  is  a  social  whole  which  realizes 
equally  my  own  good  and  the  good  of  others.  If  it  be  a 
systematic  whole  —  and  what  else  can  be  a  whole,  par- 
ticularly a  social  whole?  —  then  it  would  seem  that  one 
might  enter  the  system  of  good  at  any  point,  whether 
of  self-interest  or  of  others'  interests,  and  reach  the  same 
result.  Should  I,  then,  trusting  to  this  systematic  rela- 
tion, be  safe  in  making  self-interest  —  my  personal  hap- 
piness —  the  guide  of  life?  By  no  means,  Professor 
Dewey  will  reply;  the  good  consists,  not  in  personal 
happiness,  but  in  objective  results.  These  will  indeed 
bring  happiness  in  their  train,  but  to  make  happiness 
the  aim  is  from  a  moral  standpoint  both  vicious  and  ab- 
surd; it  amounts  to  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse.14 

For  now  I  give  nine  times  the  consideration  to  the  good  of  others  that  I 
give  to  my  own.  Or  to  put  it  in  other  words,  devotion  to  the  common 
good  now  differs  from  pure  altruism  by  only  ten  per  cent. 

14  This  is  Professor  Dewey's  figure.  But  if  the  cart  is  permanently 
harnessed  to  the  horse,  can  you  choose  the  horse  without  choosing  the 
cart?  For  example,  suppose  that  a  man  engaged  to  marry  a  penniless 
girl  learns  that  she  has  unexpectedly  inherited  a  fortune.  Can  he  claim, 
while  keeping  to  the  engagement,  that  he  does  not  now  deliberately 
choose  to  marry  the  fortune  as  well  as  the  girl?  According  to  the  prin- 
ciples stated  by  Professor  Dewey  himself  (in  Chapter  XIII)  every  fore- 
seen consequence  becomes  a  part  of  the  motive,  for  or  against.  Hence 
10 


146  Individuality  and  Unity 

Well,  then,  ignoring  the  claims  of  happiness,  may  I 
safely  aim  at  the  development  of  personal  character? 
Again,  no;  for  though  the  development  of  personal 
character,  or  self-realization,  is  the  inevitable  result  of 
the  moral  life,  it  may  never  be  the  aim.  "The  artist 
.  .  .  may  practice  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring  skill  .  .  . 
but  the  development  of  power  is  not  conceived  as  a  final 
end,  but  as  desirable  because  of  an  eventual  more  liberal 
and  effective  use." 15  At  least,  however,  may  I  not 
center  my  efforts  upon  those  objects  which  express  my 
personal  interests?  Still,  no;  for  this  assumes  a  "ready- 
made  self";16  i.e.,  a  self  specifically  defined  in  advance 
of  the  process  of  comparison  in  which  the  distinction  of 
self  and  others  first  appears.  "It  is  not  the  business  of 
moral  theory  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  mathe- 
matical equations,  in  this  life  or  another  one,  between 
goodness  [here  personal  happiness]  and  virtue.  It  is  the 
business  of  men  to  develop  such  capacities  and  desires, 
such  selves  as  render  them  capable  of  finding  their  own 
satisfaction,  their  invaluable  value,  in  fulfilling  the  de- 
mands which  grow  out  of  their  associated  life."  17 

§  85.  To  me  this  passage  seems  highly  ambiguous, 
and  we  might  let  it  go  at  that  if  it  did  not,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  conceal  precisely  the  point  we  are  seeking.  I 
shall  therefore  put  one  more  question:  Does  Professor 
Dewey  mean  that  after  I  have  measured  myself  with 
others,  and  have  discovered  what  I  want  and  what  they 
want,  I  may  then  take  my  stand  upon  what  I  want  and 

if  the  fortune  by  itself  is  a  good  thing  to  have,  it  cannot  but  add,  in  the 
present  case,  to  the  desirability  of  the  match  and  form  a  positive  factor 
in  the  aim.  If,  then,  happiness  is  a  similarly  foreseen  consequence  of 
virtue,  as  it  must  be  for  one  who  accepts  Professor  Dewey's  view,  can 
you  aim  at  virtue  without  aiming  at  happiness?  And  on  the  other  hand, 
if  you  aim  at  happiness  could  you  fail  to  reach  virtue? 

16  P.  394.  w  P.  396-  "  P.  396. 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  147 

insist  that  the  social  arrangement,  while  satisfying  the 
personal  interests  of  others,  now  severally  defined,  shall 
also  satisfy  mine?  Listen  to  his  answer:  "The  patriot 
who  dies  for  his  country  may  find  in  that  devotion  his 
own  supreme  realization,  but  none  the  less  the  aim  of 
his  act  is  precisely  that  for  which  he  performs  it:  the 
conservation  of  his  nation.  He  dies  for  his  country, 
not  for  himself."  Again,  "it  is  impossible  that  genuine 
artistic  creation  or  execution  should  not  be  accompanied 
with  the  joy  of  expanding  selfhood,  but  the  artist  who 
thinks  of  himself  and  allows  a  view  of  himself  to  inter- 
vene between  his  performance  and  its  results,  has  the 
embarrassment  and  awkwardness  of  'self-consciousness,' 
which  affects  for  the  worse  his  artistic  product.  .  .  .  The 
problem  of  morality,  upon  the  intellectual  side,  is  the 
discovery  of,  the  finding  of,  the  self,  in  the  objective  end 
to  be  striven  for;  and  then  upon  the  overt  practical  side, 
it  is  the  losing  of  self  [italics  mine]  in  the  endeavor  for 
objective  realization."  18 

And  so,  it  seems,  we  are  to  find  ourselves  in  the  objec- 
tive social  ends,  but  never  under  any  circumstances 
to  find  them  in  ourselves;  rather,  even  after  finding 
"ourselves,"  to  lose  ourselves  again  in  them.  This 
seems  to  me  a  strangely  mystical  termination  for  a 
"moral  democracy."  And  I  prefer  to  believe  that 
Professor  Dewey's  view  is  better  expressed  in  the  pas- 
sage in  which  the  interests  of  self  and  others  are  to  be 
referred  to  an  "equal"  and  "impartial"  judgment, 
vague  as  these  terms  may  be.  The  present  interpreta- 
tion, however,  is  in  accord  with  the  James-Dewey 
theory  of  the  original  objectivity  of  instinctive  desire. 
We  come  into  the  world  with  instincts  already  directed 
outward,  —  upon  objects.  We  become  conscious  of 

18  P.  393- 


148  Individuality  and  Unity 

these  instincts,  of  their  objects,  and  of  our  relation  to 
them.  Does  this  consciousness  make  a  difference?  Does 
it  alter  the  direction  of  the  instincts?  Does  its  revela- 
tion of  personal  aims  and  of  our  power  of  choice  mean 
that  we  should  turn  these  objects  to  our  own  account? 
For  Professor  Dewey,  not  at  all.  The  sole  function  of 
our  consciousness  is  to  make  the  objects  clearer,  to 
accelerate  and  render  more  effective  the  original  drift 
of  the  instincts  toward  objective  ends.  And  this  should 
be  our  sole  moral  ideal.  Self-consciousness,  in  other 
words,  is  a  vice.  The  function  of  consciousness  in  the 
individual  is  merely  to  assist  in  the  realization  of  the 
plans  already  laid  down  by  Nature  or  Society.19  The  ob- 
trusion of  self  into  the  process  is  no  doubt  a  necessary 
evil;  but  it  should  be  treated  as  such;  that  is,  as  a  by- 
product of  evolution,  as  something  which  when  found  is 
to  be  lost  again;  in  a  word,  as  a  temporary  and  decadent 
stage  between  an  original  and  a  final  state  of  absolute 
disinterestedness. 

§  86.  To  the  last  clause  of  this  I  doubt  if  Professor 
Dewey  would  assent.  Yet  I  think  it  may  be  taken  as  a 
legitimate  inference  from  his  general  point  of  view.  For 
you  will  have  noted  that  whether  primitive  desires  are 
to  be  interpreted  as  positively  altruistic  or  as  neutrally 
disinterested,  in  either  case  the  primitive  gives  us  the 
original  meaning  of  human  life,  which  we  have  now  more 
or  less  forgotten,  and  which  it  is  our  proper  aim  to  rein- 
state and  fulfil.  In  this  you  may  recognize  a  very  ancient 
and  pervasive  tendency  of  human  thought,  —  the  ten- 
dency, namely,  to  conceive  the  general  order  of  things 
as  something  which  was  perfect  and  harmonious  in 
the  beginning,  which  has  been  disturbed  by  difference 
and  discord,  and  corrupted  by  distinctions,  and  must 

19  See  the  statement  of  the  functional  theory  of  consciousness,  §  6:. 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  149 

again  be  brought  back  to  the  original  unity.  In  the 
earliest  Greek  thought  we  find  Anaximander  deriving 
the  world  from  an  "infinite"  out  of  which  all  things 
arise  and  to  which  they  return  by  their  destruction,  in 
order,  as  he  mystically  conceives  it,  "to  render  to  each 
other  atonement  and  punishment  for  their  offense 
against  the  order  of  time."  And  all  Greek  philosophy 
rested  upon  a  cosmological  background  of  periodic  dis- 
turbance and  return  to  unity.  The  same  conception 
appears  in  the  biblical  account  of  the  Garden  of  Eden;  of 
the  fall  of  man  due  to  the  dangerous  and  unfortunate 
tree  of  knowledge;  and  of  the  final  readjustment  and 
purification  upon  the  millennial  last  day.  The  Christian 
millennium  reappears,  unwittingly,  in  Spencer's  "last 
stage  of  evolution";  the  Garden  of  Eden  in  the  Golden 
Age  of  the  eighteenth  century.  More  recent  thought 
has  rejected  the  notion  of  primitive  freedom,  but  the 
Golden  Age  is  still  with  us,  and  our  anthropology, 
sociology,  and  psychology  are  full  of  the  glorification  of 
primitive  man.  Yet  even  the  Greeks  felt  that  the 
reinstated  unity  could  not  be  quite  the  same  as  the 
primitive.  And  for  modern  science  and  modern  evolu- 
tionism a  complete  identification  of  the  two  is  mani- 
festly impossible.  The  final  stage  must  be  in  some  sense 
an  improvement  upon  the  first.  Yet,  apparently,  not 
the  intervening  stages.  Adolescence  is  conceived  to  be 
less  attractive  than  infancy.  Rustic  simplicity  is  much 
to  be  preferred  to  the  semi-culture  of  the  newly  rich, 
the  newly  sophisticated  and  emancipated.  The  raw  is 
at  any  rate  better  than  the  half-baked.  At  this  middle 
stage  it  is  felt  that  culture  has  produced  nothing  but 
corruption.  So  of  our  modern  individualism.  The  com- 
mon impression  would  be,  I  think,  that  while  its  dis- 
tinction of  meum  and  tuum  may  be  a  necessary  feature 


150  Individuality  and  Unity 

of  the  progress  toward  a  higher  unity,  in  itself  it  marks 
a  decadent  aberration  from  the  ideal  social  order  which 
primitively  was  and  finally  is  to  be. 

§  87.  With  the  several  points  of  the  anti-individual- 
istic view  now  finally  before  us  I  shall  proceed  to  their 
refutation.  First  let  me  say  that  this  argument  from 
origins  attaches  an  altogether  mistaken  importance  to 
the  psychology  of  the  primitive  mind.  I  would  not  be 
understood  to  say  that  the  primitive  mind  is  unrelated  to 
our  own,  only  that,  as  a  "simple,"  "elementary,"  and 
easily  definable  basis  for  the  explanation  of  the  complexi- 
ties of  mature  thought,  it  is  wholly  illusory.  The  mind 
of  the  child,  for  example,  —  even  of  your  own  child  - 
is  the  mind  that  you  understand  least.  As  compared 
with  the  mind  of  your  colleague  or  friend  its  operations 
are  baffling  and  mysterious.  Likewise  of  the  primitive 
man.  His  monuments  —  his  language,  his  art,  his  ap- 
paratus of  social  customs  —  are  indeed  of  fascinating 
interest,  —  just  because  of  their  strangeness.  Their 
significance  for  him  is  a  matter  mostly  of  our  interpreta- 
tion from  the  standpoint  of  our  own  way  of  thinking. 
Assuming  our  interpretation  to  be  correct,  he  is  still  not 
an  authority  for  moral  ideals.  For  this,  I  cannot  urge 
too  strongly,  is  to  deny  that  our  consciousness  is  efficient 
or  that  there  is  any  real  evolution  of  intelligence.  For 
us,  as  self-conscious  and  responsible  agents,  it  is  not  a 
question  of  what  is  primitive,  "natural,  "or  "inherent"  in 
human  tendencies,  but  of  what  is  intelligent,  enlight- 
ened, and,  if  you  like,  sophisticated;  and  the  more 
sophisticated  must  be  accepted  as  authoritative  over 
the  less.  Or,  in  other  words,  the  causes  of  conduct  — 
of  conduct  not  yet  subjected  to  criticism  —  may  be 
found  in  these  primitive  tendencies;  but  for  the  con- 
scious agent  the  question  is  not  of  cause  but  of  value; 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  151 

and  the  value  of  conduct  is  the  expression  of  enlight- 
ened deliberation. 

Moreover,  we  are  not  concerned  with  any  question  of 
absolute  beginnings.  There  appears  to  be  a  beginning 
of  the  individual.  There  may  have  been  a,  beginning  of 
the  race;  and  possibly  of  consciousness.  But  no  begin- 
ning is  conceivable  from  the  standpoint  of  consciousness 
itself,  —  and  especially  not  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
genetic  analysis.  For  a  genetic  or  evolutionary  series 
is  by  its  very  nature  infinite  in  both  directions,  and  any 
assumption  of  either  a  beginning  or  an  end  can  only  be 
arbitrarily  intruded  from  foreign  sources.  What  con- 
cerns us,  then,  is  not  the  beginning  of  social  and  moral 
evolution,  but  the  mode  of  transition  from  any  prior 
stage  to  a  later.  This  is  the  point  of  real  interest  in  the 
child  and  folk-psychology.  Our  interpretation  of  the 
process  in  ourselves  seeks  confirmatory  illustration  in 
the  process  at  other  stages.  It  is  with  this  point  in 
mind  that  I  now  proceed  to  the  main  question. 

How  shall  we  conceive  the  order  of  development  of 
ideas  and  motives  in  the  primitive  and  infant  mind? 
Shall  we  say,  with  Professor  Royce,  that  the  child  knows 
others  before  he  knows  himself,  and  that  he  appro- 
priates their  ideals  before  he  develops  any  of  his  own? 
Or  with  Professor  Dewey  that  he  is  first  aware  of  objects 
and  primarily  interested  in  objective  ends?  Or  shall 
we  say,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  hedonists  and  asso- 
ciationists,  that  he  is  first  aware  of  his  own  ideas  and 
feelings,  and  that  from  the  ideas  he  infers  the  existence 
of  objects,  and  for  his  own  pleasure  he  decides  to  take 
an  interest  in  other  persons?  To  these  questions  my 
answer  will  be :  neither  and  both,  —  that  is  to  say,  one 
just  as  much  and  just  as  little  as  the  other.  My  point 
will  be  that  the  slightest  assumption  of  temporal  priority 


152  Individuality  and  Unity 

either  of  subject  or  of  object,  or,  in  a  social  situation, 
of  self  or  of  others,  is  so  far  inconceivable  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  conscious  agent  and  inconsistent  with 
the  nature  of  consciousness.  I  shall  endeavor  also  to 
show  that  the  whole  matter  of  the  exaggeration  of  the 
social  is  a  case  of  what  James  has  called  the  psycholo- 
gists's  fallacy.  It  involves  a  confusion  of  the  situation 
as  conceived  by  you,  the  psychologist,  with  the  situa- 
tion as  conceived  by  the  mind  you  are  studying.  Or,  as 
I  prefer  to  say,  it  overlooks  the  difference  between  a 
mechanical  situation  and  the  conscious  grasp  of  that 
situation,  between  an  action  regarded  as  a  mechanical 
fact  and  the  same  action  self-consciously  directed. 

§  88.  Suppose  we  take  Professor's  Royce's  statement 
that  the  child  knows  others  before  he  knows  himself 
and  see  what  we  can  make  of  it.  Think  of  your  family 
at  dinner  with  your  infant  child,  say  six  months  old, 
propped  up  in  his  high  chair  by  the  side  of  the  table.  Is 
he  aware  of  the  presence  of  the  others,  but  unaware  of 
his  own  presence?  Would  the  situation  be  just  the  same 
for  him  if  his  bodily  presence  were,  by  a  sort  of  forcible 
abstraction,  stricken  out  of  it?  Nothing  of  course  could 
be  more  absurd.  Is  he,  then,  aware  of  himself,  but  not 
of  himself  as  himself?  In  that  case  he  is  not  aware  of 
the  others  as  others;  for  obviously  they  are  "others" 
only  by  contrast  to  self.  In  a  word,  then,  he  is  conscious 
of  no  social  situation  whatever.  For  that  matter  any 
hint  of  the  priority  of  the  awareness  of  others  involves 
a  denial  of  the  fundamental  condition  of  all  conscious- 
ness, the  condition,  namely,  of  comparison.  The  only 
thing  that  could  make  the  statement  plausible  is  a 
failure  to  distinguish  between  our  view  of  the  child  and 
his  surroundings  and  his  own  view,  or  between  the  set 
of  mechanical  facts  and  the  child's  grasp  of  the  facts. 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  153 

We  note  that  his  distinct  consciousness  of  himself  is  a 
matter  of  slow  growth,  whereas  the  physical  and  social 
situation  in  which  he  is  placed  is  to  us  perfectly  clear; 
it  ought  therefore  to  be  clear  to  him.  But  this  does  not 
follow.  If  the  child's  grasp  of  himself  is  slow,  so  also 
should  be  his  grasp  of  the  situation  before  him.  And 
not  of  the  social  situation  alone  but  of  its  simplest 
mechanical  aspects.  We  have  no  right  to  assume  that 
what  is  obvious  to  us  is  obvious  to  him,  and  that  the 
familiar  chairs,  tables,  dishes,  pictures,  windows,  etc., 
etc.,  so  readily  distinguished  by  us  from  each  other  and 
from  the  human  objects,  are  equally  distinct  for  him. 
For  him  there  is  absolutely  nothing  to  accelerate  the 
development  of  his  consciousness  on  this  side  rather  than 
on  the  other.  His  grasp  of  himself  is  indeed  imperfect, 
but  equally  imperfect  is  his  grasp  of  the  world. 

§  89.  Our  next  point  has  to  do  with  that  much  over- 
worked and  little  analyzed  category  of  imitation.  Since 
the  child  knows  others  before  he  knows  himself,  it  fol- 
lows, we  are  told,  that  he  adopts  the  point  of  view  of 
others  before  forming  any  of  his  own  and  evolves  his  own 
out  of  theirs.  Here  again  it  is  important  first  of  all  to 
know  whether  the  situation  that  we  have  in  mind  is  a 
conscious  situation  or  a  relation  of  mechanical  facts. 
When  we  say  that  the  child  appropriates  by  imitation 
the  ideals  and  valuations  of  others,  do  we  mean  that  he 
consciously  and  deliberately  does  what  he  sees  others 
do,  because  he  is  impressed  with  its  worth?  Or  merely 
that,  by  virtue  of  an  unconscious  instinct,  embodied  in 
the  structure  of  his  nervous  system,  he  copies  and  re- 
peats what  happens  to  be  done  in  his  presence?  With 
regard  to  the  latter,  I  doubt  if  there  be  any  evidence  for 
a  general  copying  instinct,  i.e.,  an  instinct  to  repeat  what 
is  done  in  one's  presence  irrespective  of  what  it  may  be. 


154  Individuality  and  Unity 

The  fact  of  imitation,  —  that  men,  and  especially  chil- 
dren, constantly  do  what  they  see  others  do  —  this  must 
be  freely  admitted.  The  question  remains  whether  repe- 
tition of  the  act  is  due  to  the  others'  example  as  such, 
or  whether  this  example  simply  furnishes  an  initiatory 
stimulus  —  a  stimulus  that  might  just  as  well  come 
from  another  source,  from  nature  or  from  self  —  which 
rouses  to  action  a  common  human  instinct.  However 
this  may  be,  let  us  admit  that  imitation  is  in  some  sense 
a  mechanical  fact.  This  fact,  I  say,  is  irrelevant.  The 
question  is  not  whether  we  do  in  fact  tend  to  repeat 
the  actions  of  others,  or  whether  in  fact  children  repeat 
the  actions  of  others  before  they  form  plans  of  their  own, 
but  whether  as  a  fact  of  consciousness  they  first  appre- 
ciate the  importance  of  others'  actions  and  from  this 
derive  an  importance  for  their  own. 

Now,  as  a  fact  of  consciousness,  the  priority  of  imi- 
tation of  others  is  quite  inconceivable.  Conscious  imi- 
tation is  never  mere  imitation.  Common  sense  testifies 
to  this  when  it  couples  with  "imitation"  as  express- 
ing its  essential  attribute,  the  adjective  " blind."  Con- 
scious imitation  involves  at  its  lowest  terms  some  factor 
of  selection.  Even  the  child  does  not  imitate  anybody 
and  everybody.  And  it  is  a  fact,  I  think,  that  the  very 
young  child  —  the  child  less  than  a  year  old  —  shows  few 
signs  of  imitation,  —  just  because  he  has  developed  as 
yet  no  personal  ground  for  determining  what  to  imitate. 
And  when  he  begins  to  imitate,  and  for  some  time  after, 
his  imitation  is  no  special  compliment  to  "society  " ;  for  he 
would  as  soon  imitate  a  locomotive  as  his  own  respected 
parent,  —  unless,  indeed,  the  parent  happens  to  be  a 
soldier,  a  fireman  or  a  policeman.  At  every  stage,  then, 
the  imitation,  so-called,  is  the  expression  of  a  personal 
ideal.  But  then,  so  far  as  this  is  true,  it  is  not  mere 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  155 

repetition.  Even  the  child  does  not  simply  follow  the 
example  of  others.  Nor,  above  all,  is  this  ever  his  de- 
liberate intention.  The  same  might  be  said  of  many 
grown  persons  who  are  accused  of  aping  their  superiors. 
It  may  seem  so  to  others;  to  themselves  the  adoption 
of  a  peculiarity  of  manner  or  dress  is  either  unconscious 
or  the  expression  of  an  independent  personal  valuation. 
Likewise  the  child.  His  play  is  not  "play"  for  him,  but 
reality.  And  he  resents  the  imputation  of  doing  some- 
thing "just  because  Daddy  does  it"  as  soon  as  he  is  old 
enough  to  know  what  this  means.  So  far  as  he  becomes 
aware  of  the  nature  of  his  act,  in  this  or  any  other 
aspect,  he  undertakes  to  alter  it  in  the  direction  of  per- 
sonal choice.  The  degree  of  choice  may  be  slight,  but 
it  is  quite  as  clear  as  his  consciousness  of  the  significance 
of  his  act  in  any  other  aspect.  And  if  it  seems  otherwise 
it  is  because  we  overestimate  the  child's  awareness  of 
what  he  is  doing  and  assume  that  the  several  aspects  of 
his  act  are  as  plain  to  him  as  to  us. 

When  we  assume  that  the  child  must  as  a  matter  of 
course  begin  by  adopting  the  ideals  of  others,  what  we 
have  in  mind  is  this:  We  think  of  the  child  as  thrust 
unexpectedly  and  without  preparation  into  a  fully 
organized  society.  What  can  he  do,  then,  but  adopt 
the  existing  social  standards  as  a  preliminary  basis  for 
conduct?  This  is  of  course  what  you  or  I  would  do  if 
we  took  up  our  residence  in  a  foreign  country.  But  not 
so  the  child.  He  is  not  in  a  foreign  country.  He  has 
never  been  in  any  other.  The  beauty  of  the  existing 
social  order  is  therefore  all  wasted  upon  him.  And  the 
wisdom  of  proceeding  cautiously  in  a  new  environment 
is  something  he  knows  nothing  about.  For  the  adoption 
of  the  current  standards  he  has  consequently  no  psy- 
chological basis.  It  may  happen  that  he  does  as  others 


156  Individuality  and  Unity 

do.  If  so,  the  ground  must  be  sought  in  something 
beyond  his  consciousness.  Any  conscious  choosing  of 
these  standards  will  involve,  so  far,  an  already  developed 
individual  self,  which  will  then  express  itself,  not  by 
mere  repetition,  but  by  a  reinterpretation  of  the  current 
usage  to  fulfil  its  own  individual  meaning.  I  hold,  then, 
that  as  a  fact  of  consciousness  imitation  is  never  prior 
to  personal  choice. 

§  90.  If  the  argument  from  imitation  fails  to  estab- 
lish the  priority  of  the  social  what  shall  we  say  now 
of  the  argument  from  heredity?  The  argument  from 
heredity  is  a  very  familiar  one  for  all  sorts  of  purposes. 
For  the  present  purpose  it  is  claimed  that  since  the 
individual  is  the  heir,  ultimately,  of  a  large  part  of  the 
race,  his  instinctive  tendencies  must  be  for  the  most 
part  directed  upon  the  general  rather  than  his  own 
private  good.  But  here  again  there  is  a  failure  to  dis- 
tinguish between  mechanical  action  and  action  become 
conscious,  —  between  the  working  of  an  instinct  as  a 
reflex-arc  in  the  nervous  system  and  the  working  of  the 
same  instinct  as  the  conscious  expression  of  desire. 
Regarded  merely  as  a  nervous  arc,  the  hereditary  ten- 
dency has  properly  speaking  no  "direction"  whatever; 
for  "direction"  implies  some  foresight  of  an  end.  It 
acquires  direction  by  becoming  conscious;  but  then,  I 
hold,  its  direction  can  never  be  exclusively  "social." 

Take  any  hereditary  tendency.  Take  the  case,  say, 
of  the  son  of  the  drunkard,  who  is  popularly  supposed 
to  inherit  a  specific  and  fatal  appetite  for  drink.  Accord- 
ing to  the  heredity-theory  his  desires  are  set  from  the 
beginning  upon  alcoholic  stimulation  and,  if  the  oppor- 
tunity offers,  he  will,  other  (external)  things  equal,  drink 
himself  to  death.  And  so  he  will,  if  he  forgets,  —  if, 
that  is  to  say,  he  leaves  out  of  account  the  character  of 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  157 

his  antecedents  and  fails  to  note  the  direction  in  which 
his  life  is  moving.  For  in  this  case  the  causes  of  conduct 
—  heredity  and  environment  —  are  left  to  work  them- 
selves out  without  hindrance.  But  here  of  course  we 
are  leaving  consciousness  out  of  the  question.  And  if 
we  make  the  illustration  perfect  we  must  say  that  he 
does  not  even  desire  to  drink,  nor  really  know  that  he 
drinks  —  he  simply  drinks.  But  when  once  he  knows, 
then  everything  is  changed,  —  and  in  the  measure  of 
his  knowing.  For  he  cannot  know  what  he  is  doing 
without  asking  how  far  he  wishes  to  do  it.  And  when 
this  question  is  raised  it  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  causes 
but  of  reasons.  Hereditary  tendency  may  be  a  cause  of 
unconscious  action;  as  a  reason  for  conscious  choice  it  is 
altogether  irrelevant.  For  that  matter  it  may  consti- 
tute, as  in  the  present  case,  the  strongest  reason  for 
abstinence.  The  hereditary  tendency  become  conscious 
is  therefore  completely  revolutionized.  To  a  conscious 
agent  it  is  never  a  question  of  what  his  ancestors  did, 
or  of  what  satisfied  them,  but  of  what  satisfies  him. 
However  he  may  be  related  to  them  through  the  inherit- 
ance of  family  or  racial  traits,  his  conscious  reaction 
upon  his  inheritance  is  something  unique,  original  and 
peculiar  to  himself. 

The  case  is  not  different  when  the  tendencies  in  ques- 
tion are  for  the  common  good.  Certain  of  our  inherited 
tendencies  are  no  doubt  specially  adapted  for  the  sur- 
vival of  the  race,  in  particular  the  sex-instinct.  Among 
the  lower  animals  the  strength  of  the  sexual  instinct  is 
the  sole  guarantee  of  the  preservation  of  the  species. 
And  among  the  lower  orders  of  men,  where  it  acts  with 
a  relative  lack  of  consciousness  and  foresight,  it  pro- 
duces commonly  its  "natural"  result.  But  it  would 
be  absurd  to  say  that  the  large  families  of  the  ignorant 


158  Individuality  and  Unity 

and  poor  are  the  expression  of  social  responsibility.  Nor 
could  any  intelligent  man  regard  the  strength  of  his 
sexual  desires  as  a  reason  for  begetting  an  unlimited 
number  of  children.  On  the  contrary,  there  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  no  more  conspicuous  instance  than  this  of 
the  way  in  which  the  natural  laws  of  heredity  are  revo- 
lutionized by  the  appearance  of  consciousness.  As  men 
have  learned  the  nature  of  the  reproductive  process  and 
the  possible  means  of  control,  they  have  undertaken  to 
control  it  for  ends  of  their  own  choosing,  —  and  of  their 
own  individual  choice.  Such  is  the  inevitable,  as  it  is 
also  the  rational,  result  of  knowledge.  A  man  may 
believe  that  larger  families  of  the  intelligent  classes  are 
required  for  the  welfare  of  the  state,  and  he  may  take 
an  active  part  in  a  movement  for  reaching  this  result. 
But  if  he  recognizes  any  special  individual  responsibility, 
on  the  part  of  himself  or  of  others,  he  must  at  the  same 
time  insist  upon  the  removal  of  any  special  burdens  or 
disabilities  which  may  rest  upon  the  parents  of  large 
families.  If  the  individual  is  to  raise  children  for  the 
state  the  state  must  make  it  worth  his  while. 

§  91 .  So  much  for  the  specifically  altruistic  view. 
What  shall  we  say,  then,  of  Professor  Dewey's  theory 
that  consciousness  is  primarily  of  objects,  and  that  in- 
stincts are  primarily  (not  altruistic,  but)  disinterested? 
To  this  it  might  seem  sufficient  to  reply,  No  object  with- 
out a  subject.  But  the  peculiar  plausibility  of  the  view 
requires  that  we  go  further  and  see  where  the  fallacy 
lies.  This  view  is  based,  as  we  have  seen,  upon  the 
James  theory  of  instinct,  which,  again,  is  a  reply  to  the 
hedonistic,  or  pleasure-theory.  Now,  according  to  hed- 
onism, it  would  seem  that  the  child  comes  into  the 
world  with  a  self  already  made.  That  is  to  say,  his 
mind  is  already  fixed  upon  the  attainment  of  personal 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  159 

satisfaction,  or  happiness,  the  nature  of  which  is  also 
already  clear.  His  conduct  is  therefore  from  the  begin- 
ning a  deliberate  pursuit  of  happiness.  But,  as  Professor 
Dewey  rightly  claims,  this  is  an  obvious  mistake.  The 
child's  action  is  anything  but  deliberate.  When  the 
appropriate  object  is  placed  before  him  he  seizes  it 
almost  as  inevitably  and  automatically  as  the  moth 
flies  into  the  candle-flame.  And  it  was  no  doubt  with 
this  in  mind  that  James  declared  all  action  to  be  pri- 
marily instinctive  and  directed  upon  objects.  According 
to  him  no  action  is  originally  conceivable  except  upon 
the  basis  of  a  reflex-arc  already  arranged  for  a  given 
response  to  a  given  stimulus. 

Now  I  will  grant  that  all  action  is  originally  instinctive. 
This  is  by  no  means  to  say,  however,  that  it  is  originally 
directed  upon  objects.  The  truth  is  that  James,  Dewey 
and  the  hedonists  are  guilty  of  the  same  psychologi- 
cal fallacy.  The  hedonists  endow  the  infant  with  the 
self-conscious  motives  of  the  mature  man.  James  and 
Dewey  give  him  the  mature  man's  view  of  his  physical 
and  social  situation  and  assume  that  the  mechanical 
outcome  of  his  instinctive  action  is  as  plain  to  him  as  it 
is  to  them.  Or  to  put  it  otherwise,  they  all  fail  to  dis- 
tinguish between  an  instinctive  action  as  a  mechanical 
fact  and  the  same  action  as  a  self-conscious  fact.  The 
question  is,  What  is  meant  by  an  instinct?  If  you  mean 
the  bare  fact  that  a  given  object  produces  a  given  reac- 
tion by  means  of  a  given  reflex-mechanism,  then  I  say 
that  the  instinct  has  no  "object"  whatever.  In  that 
case  the  infant's  action  is  no  more  "directed  upon  ob- 
jects" than  the  act  of  the  moth  or  the  steam-hammer. 
Do  you  mean,  however,  that  the  reaction  is  conscious? 
If  so,  I  hold  that  it  must  be  interpreted  from  the  stand- 
point of  a  conscious  agent,  and  in  particular  from  the 


160  Individuality  and  Unity 

standpoint  of  the  degree  of  consciousness  to  be  attrib- 
uted to  the  infant  before  us.  And  when  this  point 
is  made  clear  the  notion  that  the  infant's  action  is 
directed  exclusively  upon  objects  becomes  manifestly 
absurd.  To  take  a  time-honored  illustration,  a  bright 
object  —  say,  a  red  ball  —  is  placed  before  the  infant 
and  he  seizes  it.  Does  this  mean  that  the  infant  is 
aware  of  the  presence  of  the  ball  but  unaware  of  his 
own  presence?  Or  that  he  knows  the-object-being- 
seized  but  not  himself -seizing-it?  Or,  again,  that  he 
aims  to  have  the  object  seized  but  not  himself  to  seize 
it?  All  this  would  imply  a  strange  hiatus  in  the  infant 
mind.  Indeed,  the  very  difficulty  of  making  these  dis- 
tinctions clear  shows  how  intimately  the  different  aspects 
of  the  situation  are  implied  in  each  other.  The  truth 
is  that  the  infant  knows  himself  just  as  well  —  and  just 
as  little  —  as  he  knows  the  object,  and  while  intending 
to  do  something  to  the  object  he  aims  no  less  to  gratify 
himself.  Indeed,  I  cannot  see  how  these  two  aspects  of 
the  situation  —  of  a  conscious  situation  —  can  possibly 
be  separated.  It  is  true  that  he  does  not  know  either 
his  subject  or  object  as  you  know  yours.  But  to  say 
that  he  knows  only  the  object  is  to  give  him  your  con- 
sciousness of  the  object  with  his  own  consciousness  of 
self. 

§  92.  I  have  said  that  the  infant  knows  himself-seizing 
as  clearly  as  he  knows  the-object-being-seized.  You  may 
ask,  however,  what  "himself-seizing"  means.  Is  not 
what  he  knows  here  after  all  nothing  but  his  own  body 
in  a  certain  position?  And  is  this  not  simply  one  object 
in  a  world  of  objects?  Perhaps  this  is  the  considera- 
tion which  Professor  Dewey  has  in  mind.  If  so,  it  is 
only  the  same  fallacy  in  other  terms.  For  we  have  to 
remember  that  this  world  of  definitely  distinguished  and 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  161 

exactly  located  objects  is  the  world  of  reflective  thought, 
the  product  of  a  highly  developed  logic  of  science.  It 
is  not  there  for  the  infant.  And  it  would  be  an  ex- 
tremely psychological  infant  who  should  identify  him- 
self with  his  physical  organism  or  (with  Professor  James) 
locate  his  emotion  of  fear  in  its  internal  movements.  But 
let  it  be  so.  Resolve,  if  you  like,  all  your  actions  into 
those  of  your  body,  all  your  needs  into  its  needs,  and 
call  the  subject  simply  "that  object."  I  say  that  the 
distinction  of  subject  and  object  is  as  conspicuous  as 
ever  and  as  clearly  as  ever  present  in  any  stage  of 
consciousness.  For  "that  object"  possesses  a  unique 
character  which  marks  it  off,  even  as  an  object,  from  all 
other  objects  in  your  world.  It  is  the  object,  and  the 
only  object,  which  furnishes  the  point  of  view  from  which 
all  other  objects  are  surveyed  and  their  values  estimated. 
It  is  thus  the  central  point  from  which  your  view  of  the 
world  radiates,  and  which  gives  to  your  outlook  upon  the 
world  a  character  which  can  belong  to  none  other. 
In  your  experience  of  the  world  this  "outlook"  is  as 
real  and,  if  you  like,  as  objective  a  factor  as  any  other. 
As  we  have  noted  before,  a  photograph  is  never  merely  a 
photograph  of  an  object,  but  of  an  object  from  a  cer- 
tain angle;  and  the  photograph  is  as  much  a  photo- 
graph of  this  angle  as  it  is  of  the  object  itself.  So  of 
your  experience  of  the  world.  The  more  clearly  you 
analyze  the  objects  of  that  experience,  the  more  clearly 
they  are  seen  to  have  for  you  a  character  which  is  de- 
termined by  their  relation  to  "that  object"  which  you 
call  your  body.  "That  object"  has  then  the  unique 
distinction  of  being  the  only  object  that  determines  all 
the  others.  Call  it  "object,"  if  you  like;  it  has  none 
the  less  just  those  peculiarities  that  belong  to  "self." 
§  93.  If,  then,  the  distinctness  of  object-conscious- 


162  Individuality  and  Unity 

ness  is  paralleled  by  an  equal  distinctness  of  self-con- 
sciousness; if  it  be  true  that  increasing  control  over  the 
world  is  marked  by  a  correspondingly  increasing  con- 
sciousness of  personal  ends;  then  it  seems  very  absurd 
to  say  that  after  the  labor  and  pain  of  winning  ourselves, 
and  of  reaching  the  dimensions  of  personal  agents  with 
definitely  individual  ideals  and  ambitions,  we  should 
simply  again  "lose  ourselves"  in  the  field  of  disinterested 
effort.  To  me  this  is  to  emulate  "the  King  of  France 
with  his  ten  thousand  men."  And  I  think  this  is  a  con- 
venient place  to  consider  Professor  Dewey's  doctrine 
on  this  point,  especially  as  illustrated  in  the  self-forget- 
fulness  of  the  artist.  For  undoubtedly  this  supposed 
self-forgetfulness  and  victory  over  "self-consciousness" 
expresses  a  very  general  moral  and  esthetic  ideal.  But 
is  the  artist  really  self-forgetful?  Does  he  really  aim 
to  extinguish  the  consciousness  of  self?  I  think  that 
Professor  Dewey  has  here  appropriated  a  bit  of  loose 
popular  psychology  without  subjecting  it  to  the  test 
of  scientific  criticism.  What  we  commonly  call  "self- 
consciousness "  is  undoubtedly  a  blemish  both  in  art 
and  in  morals.  But  the  question  is  whether  the  fault 
lies  in  too  much  or  too  little.  And  in  my  view  it  is  clearly 
the  latter.  For  it  is  the  inexperienced  artist,  philan- 
thropist, public  speaker,  political  reformer,  or  what  not, 
who  is  "self-conscious."  And  the  difficulty  is  not  that 
he  is  conscious  of  holding  the  center  of  the  stage,  or  of 
deriving  honor  or  profit  from  the  situation,  but  that  he 
is  not  sufficiently  conscious  of  himself  and  his  relation 
to  the  situation  to  know  where  he  really  stands.  The 
young  artist  is  embarrassed  by  praise  because  he  is 
uncertain  of  what  is  due;  he  is  sensitive  about  selling 
his  pictures  because  he  has  not  yet  grasped  the  fact  that 
the  laborer,  even  in  art,  is  worthy  of  his  hire;  and  if 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  163 

jealous  of  the  merit  of  others  it  is  because  he  is  not  yet 
assured  of  his  own.  The  novice  at  public  speaking  goes 
astray  in  his  argument,  —  because  he  remembers  him- 
self? Rather  because,  in  the  novelty  of  the  situation,  he 
forgets  himself,  falls  into  confusion  and  loses  sight  of 
his  purpose  and  meaning.  In  other  words,  he  is  unable 
to  grasp  all  at  once,  in  a  single  clear  idea,  the  related 
facts,  first  that  he  is  a  certain  A.B.,  ordinarily  a  private 
citizen,  but  now,  secondly,  a  public  speaker.  And  so, 
once  more,  of  the  "self-consciousness"  of  the  person 
unaccustomed  to  the  usages  of  polite  society.  Would 
you  counsel  him  simply  to  forget  himself?  Really,  that 
is  not  what  you  mean.  For  is  not  "  Don't  forget  your- 
self" the  constant  admonition  of  the  wise  father  to  his 
son?  In  other  words,  "Do  not  let  the  excitement  of  the 
occasion  tempt  you  into  boastfulness  and  extravagance." 
And  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  man  who  behaves  himself 
fittingly  on  all  occasions  is  the  man  who  has  measured 
himself  with  others  and  thinks  of  himself,  not  more 
highly,  nor  yet  more  lowly,  than  he  is  —  but  justly. 

What  is  indicated,  then,  as  a  corrective  of  "self-con- 
sciousness" is  not  less  consciousness  of  self  but  more, 
not  self-forgetfulness  but  the  assured  self-confidence  that 
comes  from  perfect  self-knowledge.  And  paradoxical  as 
it  may  seem  I  will  say  that  this  certain  self-confidence 
that  comes  from  a  clear  knowledge  of  self  —  a  very 
different  thing  from  "blind  self-confidence"  —  is  the 
foundation  of  all  that  is  truly  great  in  art  or  in  life. 
The  "unconsciousness  of  greatness"  is  an  illusory  exter- 
nal manifestation  of  this  very  thing.  When  a  man  of 
power  forbears  to  make  claims  for  himself  it  is  because 
he  so  certainly  knows. 

Very  curious  consequences  may  be  deduced  from  Pro- 
fessor Dewey's  position.  For  if  self-forgetfulness  is  the 


164  Individuality  and  Unity 

mark  of  virtue  in  the  artist,  why  not  in  the  locomotive- 
engineer  or  college-president?  The  ideal  college-presi- 
dent would  then  be  he  who  could  give  you  every  detail 
about  his  college  except  the  name  and  address,  and 
especially  the  salary,  of  its  president.  If  this  strikes 
you  as  trifling  I  will  ask  you  to  consider  as  a  serious  ques- 
tion how  a  man  can  be  keenly  alive  to  the  situation  with 
which  he  has  to  deal,  yet  unconscious  of  his  own  rela- 
tion to  it.  Shall  we  say,  for  example,  that  Beethoven 
was  unable  to  appreciate  the  perfection  of  structure  and 
the  wealth  of  originality  in  his  own  compositions?  Or 
that,  with  an  eye  to  all  this,  he  was  still  unable  to  see 
the  difference  between  his  own  music  and  that  of  Mozart 
and  Haydn,  and  thus  to  recognize  his  meaning  as  his 
own?  To  this  Professor  Dewey  would  perhaps  reply 
that  a  man  is  not  so  much  to  forget,  as  deliberately  to 
ignore,  himself  and  his  own  interests,  —  to  throw  away 
the  self  that  he  has  found.  But  I  submit  that  facts  are 
not  to  be  ignored,  either  in  the  physical  or  in  the  moral 
world.  And  less,  if  anything,  in  the  latter.  Your  house 
which  has  been  damaged  by  fire  may  be  repaired,  re- 
painted, and  made  as  good  as  new.  But  when  a  man 
has  declared  his  love  for  a  woman  they  can  no  longer 
be  "just  friends."  So,  when  you  have  discovered  and 
defined  a  personal  interest  in  a  given  situation,  your 
attitude  can  no  longer  be  impersonal.  And  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  assumption  of  the  impersonal  attitude 
involves  a  certain  element  of  priggishness,  or  for  that 
matter,  of  hypocrisy.  If  I  undertake  to  teach  a  class  of 
students  I  assume  that  I  know  more  of  the  subject  than 
they.  Why,  then,  should  the  assumption  not  be  recog- 
nized, by  me  as  well  as  by  others?  And  how  shall  I 
teach  efficiently  if  I  am  in  doubt  about  it?  Or  again,  if 
I  am  earning  my  living  by  teaching,  what  virtue  —  what 


•     Evolution  of  the  Individual  165 

truth?  —  can  there  be  in  professing  that  my  sole  motive 
is  to  perform  a  social  function?  Professor  Dewey  says 
that  every  foreseen  consequence  of  an  act  becomes  an 
element  in  the  motive.  So,  I  hold,  every  discovered 
relation  of  self  to  the  situation  creates  a  self-interest; 
which  is  then  not  to  be  ignored  but  to  be  satisfied.  The 
adjustment  of  this  with  the  other  elements  of  the  situa- 
tion constitutes  the  moral  problem;  and  in  ethics  as  in 
mechanics  the  solution  of  a  problem  is  accelerated  by  a 
clear  recognition  of  the  elements  involved.20 

20  In  Sabatier's  Life  of  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi  (Hough ton's  trans- 
lation, p.  184),  it  is  related  that  Brother  Mosseo,  wishing  to  put  the 
modesty  of  Francis  to  the  test,  asked  him  mockingly  why  he  should  be 
the  center  of  attraction,  being  neither  beautiful,  nor  learned,  nor  of 
noble  family.  Francis'  answer  was:  "It  is  because  the  eyes  of  the  Most 
High  have  willed  it  thus;  he  continually  watches  the  good  and  the 
wicked,  and  as  his  most  holy  eyes  have  not  found  among  sinners  any 
smaller  man,  nor  any  more  insufficient  and  more  sinful,  therefore  he 
has  chosen  me  to  accomplish  the  marvellous  work  which  God  has  under- 
taken; he  chose  me  because  he  could  find  no  one  more  worthless,  and  he 
wished  here  to  confound  the  nobility  and  the  grandeur,  the  beauty,  and 
the  learning  of  the  world." 

Can  he  have  believed  this?  It  seems  to  me  that  such  a  question  is 
suggested  inevitably  by  a  passage  like  the  above.  Not "  was  he  sincere?  " 
In  believing  that  this  was  the  view  he  ought  to  take  of  himself  he  was 
certainly  sincere.  But  was  this  view  compatible  with  his  intelligence, 
as  displayed  in  the  other  aspects  of  his  life?  He  had  been  no  extraordi- 
nary sinner,  as  sinners  go,  even  in  his  youth.  At  the  present  time  he 
was  not  only  a  great  moral  force,  but  an  administrator  of  excellent 
ability  and  judgment.  If  he  had  carried  this  sense  of  worthlessness 
into  the  government  of  his  order  his  work  must  surely  have  come  to 
naught.  Does  a  profession  of  humility  which  ignores  the  facts  add, 
then,  to  the  moral  beauty  of  his  life?  To  my  mind  it  is  quite  otherwise. 
And  to  me  the  impressive  thing  about  the  life  and  character  of  Francis 
is  the  intensity  and  unshakeableness  of  his  belief  in  his  work,  —  a  belief 
which  emboldened  him  to  treat  on  equal  terms  with  the  pope  himself, 
and  was  really  in  last  analysis  nothing  less  than  a  sp'endid  self-confidence 
and  self-assertion,  only  marred  by  the  professions  of  humility. 


1 66  Individuality  and  Unity 

§  94.  Having  now  disposed,  as  I  hope,  of  the  priority 
of  the  social  in  the  child  it  remains  only  to  apply  the  same 
principle  of  criticism  to  the  psychology  of  primitive  man. 
For  the  sociological  fallacy  involved  in  the  assumption 
of  a  preponderant  devotion  to  the  common  good  on  the 
part  of  primitive  man  is  only  another  case  of  the  psy- 
chological fallacy  which  has  just  been  pointed  out.  The 
primitive  clan  exhibits,  let  us  assume,  a  distinct  soli- 
darity, a  clear  submission  of  the  individual  will  to  the 
authority  of  the  group.  For  us  that  would  mean  a  con- 
scious recognition  of  the  paramount  claims  of  the  common 
good.  But  it  need  not  mean  this  for  primitive  man, 
any  more  than  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
mean  for  him  that  the  earth  revolves  upon  its  axis.  It 
is  admitted  that  the  primitive  man  is  very  imperfectly 
conscious  of  the  facts  and  relations  of  the  physical 
world.  On  what  ground  may  we  claim  for  him  a  highly 
intelligent  grasp  of  economic  and  social  relations?  Yet 
this  is  precisely  what  we  imply  when  we  attribute  to 
him  a  high  regard  for  the  solidarity  of  his  group.  We 
note  the  fact  of  solidarity,  we  derive  the  reasons  for  it  — 
the  reasons  that  we  should  have,  —  and  then  we  attribute 
our  reasons  to  primitive  man.  We  even  go  further. 
Because  the  solidarity  of  the  primitive  clan  is  a  fact 
easily  grasped,  and  more  self-evident  than  the  really 
greater  solidarity  of  a  modern  civilized  nation,  we 
assume  that  it  is  higher  in  degree;  we  then  endow  the 
primitive  man  with  a  higher  social  intelligence  than  our 
own.  We  might  as  well  attribute  the  same  social  intelli- 
gence to  the  beasts  in  the  herd,  or  for  that  matter  to  the 
several  parts  of  a  machine.  And  here  I  think  we  have 
the  true  point  of  view  —  using  it  in  a  properly  relative 
sense  —  for  the  explanation  of  primitive  life.  The  primi- 
tive life  is  a  relatively  unconscious  life.  The  primitive 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  167 

condition  of  mind  is  not  so  much  a  clear  perception  of 
things  as  a  vaguely  mystical  feeling.  The  primitive 
society  is  thus  less  a  conscious  relationship  than  a 
mechanical  fact.  No  high  sense  of  the  value  of  social 
unity  binds  men  together.  They  just  stick  together; 
and,  relatively  speaking,  in  much  the  same  way  as  the 
cattle  or  the  parts  of  a  machine;  because  of  the  mechani- 
cal structure  of  the  individuals  and  their  space  and  time 
relations.  The  primitive  individual  has  no  very  distinct 
consciousness  of  himself,  and  just  as  indistinct  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  presence  and  characteristics  of  his 
neighbor.  He  obeys  the  group-authority,  —  not,  how- 
ever, from  a  recognition  of  value,  but  as  the  result  of 
inherited  instinct  and  habit.  In  a  word,  then,  the  primi- 
tive state  is,  relatively  speaking,  not  a  social  state  but 
a  pre-social  state.  And  when  we  attribute  to  the  primi- 
tive individual  a  high  regard  for  social  welfare  we  are 
taking  a  term  from  a  situation  in  which  it  has  a  meaning 
and  thrusting  it  into  another  situation  in  which  it  has 
little  or  no  meaning.  For  only  as  the  individual  has  a 
meaning  of  his  own  can  he  attribute  any  meaning  to  the 
social  order. 

A  suggestion  of  the  probable  mental  attitude  of  primi- 
tive man  may  be  derived  from  certain  features  of  modern 
life.  The  well-disciplined  child  does  not  recognize  the 
authority  of  his  parents;  he  simply  fails  to  question 
it.  It  is  a  very  wise  child  who  believes  that  his  parents 
"know  best."  The  same  attitude  existed  a  few  cen- 
turies ago  with  regard  to  the  divine  authority  of  kings; 
and  it  is  the  attitude  today  of  those  persons  for  whom 
the  will  of  God  is  the  ultimate  moral  authority.  The 
will  of  God  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  explicitly  recognized. 
Rather  is  it,  as  formerly  the  case  with  the  divine  right 
of  kings,  an  act  of  impiety  to  raise  the  question.  Yet 


1 68  Individuality  and  Unity 

when  men  began  to  study  the  constitution  of  states  the 
question  of  royal  authority  was  inevitably  raised.  And 
the  question  took  the  form  of  asking  by  what  service  to 
the  individual  citizen  the  king  could  rightfully  demand 
his  obedience.  Every  opaque  form  of  authority  must 
meet  this  question  when  the  exercise  of  authority  be- 
comes a  conscious  fact  in  the  minds  of  men,  —  the 
authority  of  God  no  less  than  that  of  the  king;  and  no 
less  than  these  the  authority  of  "society"  and  the  state. 
§  95.  In  this  criticism  of  the  theory  of  the  priority  of 
the  social  motives  it  will  be  seen  that  I  do  not  deny  that 
the  desires  of  men  are  social.  That  men  could  be  what 
tliey  are  or  get  what  they  want  apart  from  the  social 
relation  is  for  our  thought  of  today  too  obviously  absurd. 
What  I  insist  upon  is  the  fundamentally  reciprocal 
character  of  the  social  relation  and  the  fundamentally 
self-interested  attitude  of  the  individual  who  consciously 
accepts  this  relation.  And  I  may  conveniently  close 
this  criticism  by  pointing  out  once  more  the  ambiguity 
of  the  term  "social"  upon  which  the  opposing  theory 
rests  and  which  lends  such  plausibility  to  the  essential 
disinterestedness  of  human  desires.  When  Aristotle 
says  that  man  is  by  nature  a  political  animal  he  means, 
of  course,  that  the  individual  is  by  nature  such  as  to  find 
his  chief  good  in  association  with  other  men;  but  he  is 
very  far  from  meaning  that  the  individual  locates  his 
chief  good  in  the  good  of  others,  or  that  his  attitude  is 
in  any  way  disinterested.  A  disinterested  and  outward 
direction  of  desire  and  a  demand  for  a  life  of  associated 
activities  —  these  two  conceptions  are  all  the  world 
different.  Professor  Dewey's  argument  consists  in  mak- 
ing them  the  same.21  One  may  grant,  as  I  do,  that  man 

M I  think  that  Professor  Cooley,  in  his  Social  Organization,  is  guilty 
of  the  same  confusion  when  he  says  (p.  37)  that  "those  who  dwell  pre- 


Evolution  of  the  Individual  169 

is  a  social  being,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  not  good  for  him 
to  be  alone;  it  by  no  means  follows  from  this  that  his 
social  intercourse  is  determined  by  a  regard  for  others, 
or  that  it  is  not  determined  at  every  point  by  individual 
ends.  A  game  of  cards  with  two  or  three  others  may  be 
far  more  worth  while,  and  a  more  humane  form  of  enjoy- 
ment, than  a  game  of  solitaire;  but  this  does  not  mean 
that  I  am  in  the  game  for  the  purpose  of  losing  to  my 
friends.  The  grocer  and  his  customer  find  their  good 
in  the  maintenance  of  a  social  relation;  but  I  do  not  buy 
my  groceries  for  the  benefit  of  the  trade,  nor  is  the  grocer 
in  business  "for  his  health,"  or  for  mine.  It  is  indeed 
true,  then,  that  the  good  of  the  individual  is  to  be  found 
only  in  social  life;  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  he  is  in 
society  for  individual  ends. 

ponderantly  on  the  selfish  aspect  of  human  nature  and  flout  as  senti- 
mentalism  the  altruistic  conception  of  it,  make  their  chief  error  in  failing 
to  see  that  our  self  itself  is  altruistic,  that  the  object  of  our  higher  greed 
is  some  desired  place  in  the  minds  of  other  men,  and  that  through  this 
it  is  possible  to  enlist  ordinary  human  nature  in  the  service  of  ideal 
aims."  A  desire  for  a  place  in  men's  minds,  as  the  object  of  fear,  or 
admiration,  or  even  of  love,  is  surely  a  very  different  thing  from  a  dis- 
interested desire  for  their  welfare. 


170  Individuality  and  Unity 


II  THE  FORMAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  INDIVIDUALISM 

The  purpose  of  all  this  criticism  of  the  anti-individual- 
istic view  is  to  make  the  meaning  of  our  individualism 
clearer  by  contrast.  To  a  certain  extent  I  trust  this 
purpose  has  been  realized  in  the  criticism  itself.  We 
have  now,  however,  to  state  the  results  of  our  discussion 
in  explicit  form.  The  view  which  has  been  the  chief 
object  of  our  criticism  holds  that  men  are  inherently,  by 
nature  and  heredity,  social-regarding  and  disinterested; 
and  that,  therefore,  as  they  become  self-conscious,  they 
adopt  this  tendency  as  marking  the  direction  of  their 
moral  ideal.  The  contrary,  hedonistic  view,  which  has 
appeared  only  incidentally  in  our  discussion,  holds  that 
men  are  by  nature  self-regarding  and  that  a  regard  for 
social  welfare  is  the  product  of  education  and  experience. 
Our  individualism  differs  from  both.  I  hold  that  men 
are  by  nature  neither  self-regarding  nor  social-regarding 
but  that  they  become  by  culture  both.  The  implications 
of  this  general  statement  may  be  conveniently  expressed 
in  a  brief  series  of  dogmatic  theses. 

§  96.  First,  tlten,  by  nature,  in  the  sense  in  -which  we 
have  used  the  term,  men  are  to  be  conceived  neither  as 
self-regarding  nor  as  social-regarding,  but  as  impersonal 
mechanical  facts.  Here  of  course  I  make  a  sharp  dis- 
tinctjpn  between  nature  and  culture,  between  the  indi- 
vidual regarded  as  a  complex  of  neural  mechanisms  and 
the  same  individual  become  a  self-conscious  agent.  It 
may  be  urged  that  since  it  is  the  peculiarity  of  just  such 
mechanisms  to  become  self-conscious,  and  since  a  higher 
degree  of  self-consciousness  is  the  distinguishing  pecu- 
liarity of  human  nature,  men  should  rather  be  described 
as  by  nature  conscious  agents.  To  this  I  should  gladly 


Principles  of  Individualism 

assent;  and  indeed  it  is  in  this  sense  that,  in  the  next 
lecture,  I  shall  offer  a  justification  of  the  theory  of  natural 
rights.  But  in  the  meantime  we  have  used  the  term, 
following  the  usage  implied  in  the  view  under  criticism, 
to  refer  to  the  original  constitution  of  our  instincts,  to 
instinct  not  yet  subjected  to  culture.  And  in  this  sense 
I  say  that,  whatever  their  mechanical  constitution,  the 
instincts  have  no  direction  whatever.  The  natural  man, 
in  other  words,  is  neither  selfish  nor  generous  -but  only 
a  fool.  And  this  rude  statement  embodies  to  my  mind 
a  most  important  ethical  truth.  The  moral  significance 
of  conduct  is  a  question  not  of  its  "natural"  constitution 
but  of  its  meaning.  It  has  no  meaning  until  as  conscious 
conduct  it  expresses  the  desires  of  an  individual  agent. 
The  ideal,  or  criterion  of  value,  is  then  a  question  of  the 
direction  which  these  desires  take  as  they  become  more 
conscious. 

§  97.  Now,  secondly,  so  far  as  the  individual  man  be- 
comes a  conscious  individual,  and  comes  to  know  where  he 
is,  what  he  is  doing,  and  what  he  wants,  he  becomes  never 
less  self-regarding  but  always  more  so.  And  I  hold  this 
to  be  true  absolutely,  for  every  point  on  the  scale.  It 
makes  no  difference  what  has  been  the  nature  of  his 
previous  activities.  He  may  have  been  unconsciously 
self-sacrificing  to  a  very  high  degree,  contributing  of  his 
time  and  money,  like  Goldsmith's  "  Good-Natured  Man," 
to  every  altruistic  demand  presented  to  him.  That  is, 
he  may  be  "naturally  generous."  None  the  less,  when 
he  comes  to  the  point  of  a  serious  examination  of  his 
conduct,  of  forming  an  explicit  conception  of  its  results 
and  a  clear  estimate  of  their  value,  he  finds  that  he  is 
bound  to  consider  the  situation  before  him  in  its  relation 
to  himself  and  to  estimate  its  values  in  the  light  of  his 
personal  ends.  And  I  hold  that  this  will  be  ever  truer 


172  Individuality  and  Unity 

the  more  reflectively  he  considers  the  situation  and  the 
more  seriously  he  acknowledges  a  personal  and  moral 
responsibility.  The  more  explicitly  he  recognizes  an 
obligation  as  binding,  the  more  insistently  he  must 
demand  that  it  show  a  relation  to  ends  that  are  valu- 
able to  himself;  for  otherwise  it  can  neither  bind  nor 
bind  him.  And  all  this  I  hold  to  be  the  necessary  deriva- 
tive of  the  fact  that  he  is  a  conscious  agent.  The  whole 
moral  significance  of  his  being  conscious  lies  in  the  fact 
that  thereby  he  becomes,  no  longer  a  means  for  the  ends 
of  others,  but  a  personal  agent  with  ends  of  his  own  and 
the  power  of  realizing  his  ends.  This  fact  imposes  upon 
him  as  his  highest  duty  the  duty  of  self-assertion,  - 
not,  indeed,  the  blind  self-assertion  of  the  brute -or  the 
fool,  but  the  reflective  and  deliberate  self-assertion  of 
the  intelligent  man,  who,  having  a  clear  conception  of 
his  personal  aims,  has  an  equally  clear  conception  of  the 
conditions  through  which  his  aims  are  to  be  realized. 

§  98.  And  this  brings  us  to  our  third  tJiesis:  that  very 
knowledge  which  shows  Hie  individual  himself  shows  him 
also  that  he  is  living  in  a  world  with  other  persons  and  other 
things,  whose  mode  of  behavior  and  whose  interests  deter- 
mine for  him  tlie  conditions  through  which  his  own  interests 
are  to  be  realized.  Self  and  the  world,  subject  and  object, 
—  neither  of  these  is  conceivable  in  isolation.  If  there 
can  be  no  other  without  a  self,  there  can  equally  be  no 
self  without  an  other,  no  knower  without  a  known,  no 
agent  apart  from  a  field  of  action.  I  hold,  then,  that 
just  this  knowledge  of  the  nature  and  presence  of  others 
is  sufficient  to  impose  a  genuine  social  obligation,  and 
that  nothing  else  is  needed  to  account  for  any  aspect 
of  social  responsibility.  And  the  point  here  is  not  the 
social  relation,  i.e.,  not  the  relation  between  subject  and 
object  as  fellow-members  of  the  same  biological  species, 


Principles  of  Individualism  173 

but  the  knowledge-relation.  In  other  words,  the  rela- 
tion which  knowledge  sets  up  between  myself  and  my 
human  fellows,  however  superior  in  intimacy  and  im- 
portance, is  not  different  in  principle  from  that  which  it 
sets  up  between  myself  and  other  material  things.  In 
neither  case  does  the  recognition  of  another  involve  a 
denial  of  self.  Yet  when  I  have  perceived  even  a  chair 
standing  in  my  way  I  can  no  longer  proceed  as  if  it  were 
not  there.  Nor  will  it  be  profitable  as  a  rule  simply  to 
kick  it  out  of  the  way.  In  dealing  with  things,  as  with 
persons,  we  have  to  consider  what  they  will  do  and  what 
they  will  not  do.  We  make  ropes  of  hemp,  wire  of  steel, 
furniture  of  wood.  As  Aristotle  would  say,  we  endeavor 
to  realize  the  form  implicit  in  the  matter.  And  our  suc- 
cess in  dealing  with  nature  depends  upon  our  grasp  of 
its  various  capacities.  In  "subjugating"  nature  to  our 
uses,  we  in  the  same  act  adjust  ourselves  to  the  uses  of 
nature. 

Just  so  with  our  fellow-men.  When  I  find  another 
man  standing  in  my  way  I  may  kick  him  aside  as  I  would 
the  chair;  but,  quite  apart  from  other  considerations, 
this  is  a  poor  use  to  make  of  him.  Humanly  speaking, 
it  may  under  certain  circumstances  be  the  only  possible 
'use,  —  as  when  I  am  confronted  suddenly  with  an 
enemy,  or  with  a  competitor  in  the  field  of  commerce. 
But  such  circumstances,  however  inevitable,  are  cases 
of  ignorance.  I  do  not  thoroughly  know  his  purposes, 
nor  my  own  as  related  to  his.  I  have  not  yet  investi- 
gated what  may  be  gained  by  working  in  cooperation. 
So  far,  however,  as  the  circumstances  permit  of  calm 
deliberation,  I  shall  inevitably  consider  the  uses  to  be 
made  of  him  as  a  partner  and  a  friend.  The  simplest 
dictates  of  intelligence  declare  this  to  be  the  rational 
point  of  view.  But  then  I  shall  be  in  logic  bound,  as  in 


174  Individuality  and  Unity 

dealing  with  mechanical  objects,  to  consider  what  he  is 
good  for  and  what  he  is  not  good  for,  —  in  other  words, 
his  capacities,  his  wants,  his  tastes,  and  his  ideals;  and 
the  meeting-points  of  these  with  my  own.  For  only  as 
I  secure  his  free  cooperation,  along  the  line  of  his  chosen 
interests,  —  only  thus  can  I  get  the  best  out  of  a  man, 
whether  as  a  servant,  a  partner,  or  a  friend. 

The  logic  of  the  social  relation  is  thus  precisely  that 
of  self  and  mechanical  objects.  Only,  this  social  adjust- 
ment is  far  finer  and  more  comprehensive.  There  are 
few  uses  to  be  made  of  a  chair.  It  is  therefore  a  relatively 
uninteresting  object,  —  socially  speaking,  a  very  remote 
neighbor.  Your  sailing-boat,  whose  points  you  per- 
fectly understand,  your  favorite  horse,  who  responds  at 
once  to  your  word,  —  these  present  rather  more  points 
of  contact  with  your  personal  interests.  But  with  your 
human  fellows  the  possibilities  of  contact  are  infinitely 
numerous,  infinitely  subtle,  complex,  and  various.  It  is 
a  question  only  of  the  extent  to  which  you  and  your 
neighbor  are  individually  self-conscious  and  mutually 
Other-conscious,  —  to  the  extent,  in  other  words,  to 
which  your  relation  is  that  of  persons  of  developed 
intelligence.  So  far  as  this  is  the  case  your  human 
neighbor  is  transformed  from  an  impersonal  and  socially 
remote  to  an  intimately  interesting  object,  and  you 
regard  him,  no  longer  as  a  mere  means,  whose  "interests" 
have  little  relation  to  your  own,  but  —  so  far  —  as  an 
end  in  himself,  to  be  admitted,  as  Kant  would  say,  into 
the  Kingdom  of  Ends,  because  the  ends  which  represent 
him  have  now  a  vital  relation  to  your  own. 

And  so  I  hold  that  just  this  knowledge  which  I  have 
of  my  fellow  as  a  member  of  my  world  —  the  same 
knowledge  that  reveals  to  me  myself  and  that  places 
me  also  in  a  world  of  physical  objects  —  is  sufficient 


Principles  of  Individualism  175 

•to  constitute  a  genuine  social  obligation;  and  that  so 
far  as  I  know  my  fellow  I  become  in  logic  bound  —  by 
the  same  logic  that  binds  me  to  get  out  of  the  way 
of  an  approaching  train  —  to  include  his  interests  among 
those  to  be  considered  and — not  to  prefer  them  to  my 
own,  nor  to  give  them  "an  equal  share"  with  my  own, 
—  but  to  place  them  among  the  various  interests  in- 
volved in  the  moral  problem  and  to  see  that,  as  bearing 
upon  my  own,  they  are  as  far  as  possible  satisfied. 

I  pause  for  a  moment  to  answer  a  possible  question. 
I  have  said  that  your  neighbor  is  to  be  made  use  of  for 
what  he  is  worth  to  you;  also  that  a  self-conscious  agent 
becomes  as  such  an  end  in  himself.  Is  there  any  con- 
tradiction here?  To  my  mind  there  is  none  whatever, 
—  if  you  remember,  first,  that  he  is  to  be  intelligently 
used,  secondly,  that  he  is  to  be  treated  as  an  end  in  him- 
self only  so  far  as  he  is  himself  intelligent.  And  it  should 
be  remembered  always  that  the  responsibility  for  mak- 
ing his  intelligence  clear  rests,  not  only  upon  you,  but 
more  if  anything  upon  him.  Yet  even  in  cases  of  minor 
intelligence  it  is  often  possible  to  make  the  best  use  of 
a  man  by  giving  him  just  the  position  he  wants.  I  have 
been  told  that  in  our  Southwest,  the  problem  of  the  "bad 
man"  was  solved  by  making  him  a  deputy-sheriff,  and 
I  believe  that  a  similar  disposition  has  been  made  of  the 
brigands  in  some  parts  of  Europe.  It  may  be  that  the 
problem  of  "the  trust"  is  to  be  solved  in  the  same  way. 
In  any  case,  apart  from  the  justice  of  the  comparison, 
the  principle  will  be  the  same,  and  the  same  for  good 
and  bad.  In  dealing  with  one  of  your  human  fellows, 
from  your  standpoint  as  individual  or  from  that  of  the 
state,  the  simple  question  is,  What  can  be  done  with  him? 
What  can  we  get  out  of  him?  Now  it  is  obvious  that 
we  can  get  more  out  of  him  if  the  service  that  we  demand 


176  Individuality  and  Unity 

is  along  the  line  of  his  personal  interests.  And  if  he  has 
any  personal  interests  —  if  his  conduct  represents  genu- 
ine personality  and  intelligence  —  he  will  assist  in  solv- 
ing the  problem.  In  merely  considering  his  personal 
interests  we  shall  be  treating  him  in  a  true  sense  as  an 
end  in  himself.  But  so  far  as  he  is  not  an  intelligent 
personality  he  has  no  claim  to  such  consideration.  He 
may  then  —  so  far  —  be  regarded  merely  as  a  means. 

§  99.  This  brings  me  to  my  fourth  thesis.  By  what 
methods  is  the  solution  of  this  problem  to  be  effected? 
I  answer:  by  the  very  methods  which  Professor  Dewey 
condemns  as  artificial  and  immoral.  In  other  words, 
the  social  relation  is  to  be  adjusted  by  just  those  methods  oj 
practical  intelligence  and  ingenuity  which  we  use  when  we 
combine  various  ends  in  the  construction  of  a  house  or  a 
machine,  —  that  is  to  say,  by  the  method  of  technical  adjust- 
ment. The  only  difference  here  is  that  the  terms  to  be 
adjusted,  being  the  ends  of  intelligent  beings,  are  as  such 
more  adjustable,  and  therefore  that  the  statement  of 
the  problem,  as  represented  in  the  mutual  understand- 
ing, forms  a  larger  part  of  the  solution.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  mutual  understanding  involves  in  itself  the 
consideration  of  the  technical  possibilities. 

Accordingly,  in  the  larger  affairs  of  state  our  aim  would 
be  to  embody  such  a  provision  for  individual  ends  in  the 
adjustment  of  economic  functions  and  political  rights 
that  each  citizen  would  judge  it,  not  so  much  dangerous 
to  evade  his  responsibilities,  as  from  every  point  of  view 
obviously  unprofitable  and  absurd;  that  is  to  say,  his 
special  interests  would  be  directly  and  positively  included 
in  the  terms  of  the  social  adjustment.  In  the  more  per- 
sonal relations  we  should  endeavor  so  to  fit  together  our 
own  mode  of  life  with  that  of  our  associates  that  each 
would  not  only  move  freely  in  the  attainment  of  his 


Principles  of  Individualism  177 

own  ends  but  at  the  same  time  further  the  ends  of  his 
fellows.  Any  widely  pervasive  condition  of  this  kind 
would  imply  no  doubt  a  high  degree  of  intelligence  both 
on  the  part  of  those  who  devised  the  adjustments  and 
of  those  who  accepted  them  as  the  terms  of  the  social 
agreement.  It  would  require,  for  example,  a  very  finely 
conceived  system  of  taxation  to  provide,  in  the  absence 
of  special  penalties,  that  the  disadvantages  arising  from 
a  failure  to  make  public  improvements  because  of  a 
non-payment  of  taxes  should  fall  chiefly  upon  the  tax- 
dodgers  themselves;  and  a  very  intelligent  tax-payer  to 
reckon  his  own  loss.  In  the  absence  of  intelligence  the 
technical  adjustment  would  be  necessarily  imperfect  to 
a  corresponding  degree,  and  for  the  more  necessary 
purposes  the  "sanctions"  of  social-regarding  conduct 
would  to  some  extent  take  the  form  of  penalties  rather 
than  rewards.  But  without  intelligence  there  would  be 
no  genuine  adjustments  whatever.  And  on  the  other 
hand  the  very  use  and  meaning  of  intelligence  is  to  effect 
these  technical  adjustments.  The  social  problem  is  not 
to  be  solved  by  preaching  brotherly  love.  Social  unity 
is  no  mere  feeling.  Except  as  it  reflects  an  economic 
condition  in  which  men  are  actually  linked  together  by 
ties  of  self-interests  mutually  fulfilled,  the  feeling  of 
unity  is  a  mere  illusion. 

So  far,  then,  from  regarding  this  mode  of  approaching 
the  problem  as  artificial  and  immoral,  I  hold  that  nothing 
could  be  more  truly  natural  or  more  truly  moral.  If  we 
regard  as  significant  of  the  nature  of  man  his  capacity 
for  acting  consciously  it  can  never  be  unnatural  to  be 
intelligent.  And  if  this  capacity  enables  a  man  to  draw 
dividends  for  his  services  to  others,  and  so  to  institute 
a  concrete  and  real  unity  of  interests,  such  a  unity  is 
certainly  the  most  natural  form  of  social  adjustment. 
12 


178  Individuality  and  Unity 

For  it  realizes  exactly  the  social  meaning  of  his  being 
conscious,  and  fulfils  exactly,  as  no  other  course  would 
fulfil,  the  responsibility  which  his  consciousness  lays 
upon  him  of  realizing  his  personal  aims.  If  you  say  that 
it  leaves  out  the  question  of  character,  I  shall  reply  that 
''character"  is  nothing  but  the  developed  and  estab- 
lished capacity  for  straight  thinking  and  for  consequently 
well-directed  action.  It  would  be  false,  again,  to  say 
that  I  am  making  morality  easy.  Morality  as  I  have 
defined  it  would  be  anything  but  easy;  but  on  the  other 
hand  it  is  absurd  to  hold  that  the  performance  of  social 
obligation  should  not  be  as  easy  as  possible.  Nor  is  it 
to  the  point  to  urge  that  these  technical  adjustments 
are  temporary  in  effect,  that  they  call  for  constant  re- 
adjustment, and  fail  therefore  to  provide  a  permanent 
basis  for  social  order.  They  are  temporary  in  effect 
only  if  intelligence  be  withdrawn.  And  an  intelligent 
appreciation  of  personal  advantage  is,  I  should  say,  at 
least  as  permanent  and  reliable  a  motive  as  a  habit,  an 
assumption,  or  even  a  feeling  of  brotherly  love.  But  if 
intelligence  vanish  from  the  world  civilization  itself  is 
temporary.  And  your  furnace  fire  is  temporary.  It  is 
also,  in  the  brute  sense,  most  unnatural.  The  "natural" 
man  belongs  only  in  the  tropics.  But  just  as  furnace 
fires  and  the  other  appurtenances  of  civilized  life  are 
most  natural  and  most  moral  for  conscious  and  intelligent 
beings,  so  I  hold  that  the  method  of  technical  adjustment 
is  the  most  natural  and  rational  method  of  securing  a 
social  unity  of  interest. 

§  100.  One  more  point  remains;  not  so  much  a  sepa- 
rate thesis  as  a  corollary  of  my  second  thesis.  For  I 
fancy  that  some  opponent  who  has  reserved  his  fire  may 
now  assail  me  with  this:  "And  so  what  you  propose  is  a 
principle  of  social  morality  constructed  out  of  deliberate 


Principles  of  Individualism  179 

selfishness."  Precisely  this.  Whether  you  say  "self- 
ishness" or  use  the  nicer  term  "self-regard"  is  a  matter 
of  no  consequence.  Only,  please  be  careful  not  to  omit 
or  to  ignore  the  qualifying  term  "deliberate."  For,  in 
opposition  to  Professor  Tufts,22 1  hold  that  the  deliberate- 
ness  of  self-regard  makes  a  difference  on  the  positively  moral 
side;  and  all  the  difference  in  the  world,  —  the  differ- 
ence between  social  self-regard  and  unsocial  self-regard, 
between  a  self-regard  that  is  broad-minded  and  generous 
and  one  that  is  narrow  and  mean.  Let  us  make  this 
point  clear.  I  do  not  deny  that  there  is  a  "deliberately 
selfish  man"  whom  you  and  I  condemn.  It  does  not 
follow  from  this  that  we  condemn  his  deliberation,  or 
that  we  should  praise  his  conduct  if  the  deliberation 
were  not  there.  His  premeditation  makes  him,  indeed, 
a  subject  for  moral  judgment,  since  unpremeditated  con- 
duct has  no  moral  quality  whatever;  but  our  moral 
condemnation  means,  not  that  there  was  too  much  pre- 
meditation, but  rather  that  there  was  too  little.  We 
condemn  him  because  his  deliberation  stopped  at  such  a 
short  distance  and  revealed  a  self  capable  of  so  little 
breadth  of  view.  In  other  words,  the  deliberateness  of 
his  act,  in  showing  that  it  was  due  to  no  passing  forget- 
fulness,  reveals  the  size  of  the  inner  conscious  man. 
Yet  even  so  we  must  judge  the  deliberate  man  to  be  a 
nobler  object  than  the  same  man  undeliberate;  for  the 
undeliberate  man  is  so  far  a  mere  brute  —  a  machine. 
The  deliberate  man  is  also  a  socially  more  serviceable 
instrument.  For  you  can  argue  with  a  "  deliberately  self- 
ish man,"  but  never  with  a  fool.  And  so  I  say  that 
what  we  condemn  is  not  the  intelligence  and  definiteness 
of  his  self-regard  but  the  absence  of  more  of  it.  If  we 
suppose  his  act  to  have  been  more  fully  deliberated  we 
22  See  §  83. 


180  Individuality  and  Unity 

cannot  but  suppose  him  to  have  considered  more  care- 
fully the  plans  and  purposes  of  the  others  whom  his 
action  affected,  if  only  as  determining  their  probable 
reaction.  Had  he  done  this  he  must  have  studied  the 
possible  combinations  of  plans  for  the  advantage  of 
both.  And  thus,  I  say,  just  by  virtue  of  your  more 
thorough  deliberation,  you  become,  not  less  selfish,  but 
indeed  more  clearly  so,  yet  at  the  same  time  certainly 
broader  in  view,  and  in  a  true  sense  more  generous. 

And  here  also  we  may  see  by  contrast  what  is  really 
meant  by  the  "selfish"  man.  In  last  analysis  he  is 
simply  the  "inconsiderate"  man,  the  man  who  fails  to 
consider,  —  not  he  who  thinks  of  himself,  but  he  who 
fails  to  think  of  others.  Or  the  "thoughtless"  man, 
who  finds  it  too  much  trouble  to  think  at  all.  Or  again 
the  "blindly  selfish"  or  the  "brutally  selfish"  man,— the 
man  who  fails  to  note  the  fact  of  others  in  his  world, 
the  animal  man  whose  perception  of  facts  and  relations 
is  obtuse.  To  my  mind  these  several  equivalents  and 
modifiers  for  the  term  "selfish"  are  highly  instructive 
in  showing  us  where  the  essence  of  the  thing  lies.  No 
self-respecting  man  feels  justified  in  expecting  another 
to  sacrifice  his  own  good  for  him.  For  that  matter,  de- 
liver me  from  the  self-sacrificing  man;  the  obligations 
incurred  toward  him  I  shall  never  be  able  to  repay.  But 
if  he  claims  only  to  be  intelligent,  then  I  may  very  prop- 
erly expect  that,  where  the  situation  calls  for  it,  he  will 
include  me  in  his  plans.  And  what  I  condemn  in  the 
"selfish"  man  is  not  that  he  thinks  of  himself  —  if  he 
thinks  at  all  he  must  think  of  himself  —  but  that  he 
fails  to  take  account  of  me. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  those  persons  who  give  you  the 
most  trouble  in  personal  matters,  and  those  who  are 
least  serviceable  as  members  of  society,  are  not  those  who 


Principles  of  Individualism  181 

look  out  for  number  one  but  those  who  have  no  outlook 
whatever.  The  type  of  all  such  is  the  man  who  jolts  you 
on  the  street.  The  man  so  intensely  absorbed  in  his  own 
ends  as  naively  to  disregard  the  possibility  of  other  ends 
in  his  world;  the  man  of  easy  good  nature,  "the  creature 
of  generous  impulses,"  for  whom  anything  of  his  is  yours 
(and  anything  of  yours  is  his);  the  sentimental  man 
—  or  woman  —  whose  ineptitudes  are  justified  by  the 
motive  of  self-devotion,  and  whose  aim  in  life  is  to  have 
his  self-devotion  appreciated,  —  all  of  these  are  essen- 
tially "selfish."  And  all  are  cases  of  lack  of  vision,  and 
more  or  less  of  spiritual  dulness.  In  other  words,  all 
selfishness  is  a  manifestation  of  unintelligent  animal 
impulse.  And  from  a  utilitarian  standpoint  there  is 
really  nothing  to  choose  between  naive  sensuality,  naive 
good-nature,  and  naive  indulgence  in  altruistic  sentiment. 
Nor  from  a  moral  standpoint.  For,  remember,  no  im- 
pulse is  more  than  an  animal  impulse  so  far  as  it  is  lack- 
ing thought. 

Is  there  anything  unlovely  in  this  conception?  I  shall 
take  up  this  question  presently.  But  I  think  that  even 
those  who  have  a  sentimental  horror  of  the  definitely 
self -regarding  and  calculating  person,  as  "cold"  and 
"unsympathetic"  must  at  times  appreciate  the  satisfac- 
tion of  dealing  with  one  who  is  "reasonably  self -regard- 
ing." You  cannot  so  readily  borrow  money  from  him, 
but  more  safely.  He  is  not  so  likely  to  recall  at  two 
months  money  lent  for  three;  or  to  represent  as  a  per- 
sonal favor  a  loan  made  on  good  security  at  fair  interest; 
or  again  to  cast  into  your  teeth  as  an  injustice  a  favor 
which  he  has  voluntarily  granted.  All  this  is  implied 
in  that  respect  for  himself,  as  a  rational  and  free  agent, 
which  the  attitude  of  intelligent  calculation  expresses. 
For  my  own  part  I  prefer  a  thoughtfully  self-regarding 


1 82  Individuality  and  Unity 

man  for  all  the  purposes  of  life,  —  even  as  a  possible 
benefactor  in  poverty  and  distress.  He  might  not  see 
his  way  to  toss  me  his  purse,  like  a  hero  of  Alexander 
Dumas,  but  I  should  expect  from  him  an  intelligent 
sympathy  and  a  genuine  disposition  to  study  my  prob- 
lem, to  consider  what  I  were  still  good  for,  and  to  secure 
for  me  that  recognition  which  would  enable  me  to  live 
as  a  self-respecting,  contributory  member  of  society. 
And  on  any  other  ground  have  I  a  claim  to  his  considera- 
tion? No  doubt  this  would  exclude  a  consideration  of 
the  incapables.  But  the  absolutely  incapable  ought  not 
to  be  considered.  Yet  it  is  a  question  whether  any  one 
in  whom  the  light  of  intelligence  still  shines  is  ever 
absolutely  incapable  and  may  not  under  proper  social 
arrangements  still  be  worth  while  as  a  member  of  human 
society. 

The  philosophy  of  these  lectures  is  thus  a  philosophy 
of  self-assertion.  But  no  doctrine  of  a  blind  and  animal 
"will  to  power."  Of  will  to  power,  certainly,  —  but  of 
power  through  comprehensive  intelligence,  which  in 
human  society  is  the  final  source  of  power.  What  I 
stand  for  is  not  the  senseless  self-assertion  of  the  glorified 
brute,  or  of  the  intoxicated  genius,  claiming  a  special 
and  paradoxical  exemption  from  ordinary  responsibil- 
ity, but  the  more  definite,  more  determined,  and  more 
effective  self-assertion  of  the  clear-sighted,  and  there- 
fore —  as  I  hold  —  generous,  man. 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  183 


III  JUSTICE  AND  BROTHERLY  LOVE 

At  this  point  we  reach  the  question  which  was  chiefly 
intended  in  the  title  of  our  Third  Lecture,  the  question, 
namely,  of  the  conceptual  relations,  the  mutual  im- 
plication or  repugnance,  of  individuality  and  social  unity. 
The  question  is,  Can  there  be  unity  without  individual- 
ity? And  do  we  really  aspire-  to  such  a  unity,  or  judge 
it  to  be  beautiful  or  morally  ideal?  For  many  of  you 
this  may  be  still  an  open  question.  For  in  spite  of  my 
best  efforts  I  may  not  have  succeeded  in  exhibiting  the 
individualistic  ideal  as  other  than  narrow  and  mean. 
And  I  have  no  doubt  that  by  some  the  argument  would 
be  simply  dismissed  as  an  indication  of  spiritual  blind- 
ness. You  have  given  us,  they  would  say,  a  fair  enough 
account  of  the  logic  and  point  of  view  of  the  just  man, 
who  is  faithful  to  his  duty.  But  there  is  a  higher  motive 
than  justice  or  even  duty.  Higher  than  duty  is  love. 
And  in  love  we  have  an  ideal  of  unity  in  which  the 
demands  of  individuality  are  absolutely  transcended  and 
forgotten.  This  gives  us  a  statement  of  our  question: 
is  the  social  ideal  one  of  justice  or  of  love?  Or  again, 
what  is  the  relation  of  these  conceptions?  Can  they  be 
treated  as  mutually  indifferent? 

§  101.  I  choose  these  conceptions  as  giving  us  the 
two  expressions  of  the  social  ideal  most  prominent  in 
our  European  thought.  And  as  we  shall  see,  they 
embody  an  important  logical  distinction.  Roughly 
speaking,  they  may  be  said  to  have  come  to  us  from  two 
distinct  sources.  The  ideal  of  justice  is  inherited  mainly 
from  the  Greeks,  from  whom,  indeed,  we  have  obtained 
most  of  the  ideas  that  underlie  our  modern  culture.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  ideal  of  brotherly  love  has  come  to 


184  Individuality  and  Unity 

us  from  the  Jews,  through  the  Christian  Church.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  Christian  body  of  doctrine  is  as 
a  whole  an  oriental  product.  Rather  should  it  be  said 
that  a  great  part  of  the  Christian  theology  is  an  appro- 
priation of  Greek  philosophy.  And  many  of  those 
popular  beliefs  which  seem  to  us  characteristically 
"  Christian,"  such  as  the  belief  in  immortality,  were, 
in  much  the  same  setting  that  they  have  for  us  today, 
an  established  possession  of  the  earlier  Greek  thought. 
Yet  the  borrowing  from  the  Greeks  took  place  at  a  time 
when  the  Greek  thought  was  itself  strongly  infected 
with  oriental  ideas.  And  hi  any  case  I  think  that  the 
conception  of  brotherly  love,  with  the  point  of  view 
and  feeling-attitude  which  it  implies,  may  be  regarded 
as  a  distinctively  Christian  product. 

§  102.  As  such  it  expresses  a  mental  attitude  typically 
oriental.  That  is  to  say,  it  aims,  not  to  organize,  but  to 
dissolve  all  the  differences  created,  on  the  one  hand  by 
economic  conditions,  and  on  the  other  hand  by  varieties 
of  individual  taste,  interest,  and  opinion,  into  one  all- 
absorbing  unity  of  feeling.  Or  I  may  express  the  same 
thing  by  saying  that  it  aims  to  conceive  all  the  relations 
of  men  as  intimately  personal.  Here,  however,  I  use 
the  term  "personal"  in  its  special  and  more  popular 
sense.  For  even  from  our  own  point  of  view  the  ideal 
social  relation  is  a  personal  relation.  Yet  for  us  this 
personal  relation  is  the  final  coordination,  in  final  dis- 
tinctness, of  individual  interests.  In  the  popular  use 
of  the  term  this  element  of  distinctness  is  rather  expressly 
ignored.  "A  personal  matter,"  or  "a  matter  of  personal 
feeling"  is  something  to  be  accepted  and  not  to  be  further 
analyzed  or  understood;  in  like  manner  a  personal  rela- 
tion is  one  to  which  the  question  of  debit  and  credit  no 
longer  applies.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  Hebrew- 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  185 

Christian  conception  of  brotherly  love  interprets  all  the 
relations  of  men  as  intimately  personal.  The  relation 
of  man  to  man  is  that  of  brothers  in  a  family;  the  rela- 
tion of  man  and  God  is  that  of  son  and  father.  Hence, 
if  a  man  sins,  the  gravity  of  the  offense  lies  not  in  the 
actual  injury  done,  but  in  his  alienation  from  God  and 
from  his  fellows.  And  the  question  of  remedy  is  not  a 
matter  of  repairing  the  injury  but  of  securing  forgive- 
ness and  reconciliation,  —  a  reinstatement  of  the  broken 
unity  of  feeling.  When  this  is  accomplished  —  and  this 
alone  —  there  remains  no  difference  between  the  man 
who  has  done  much  harm  and  him  who  has  done  little. 
For  that  matter  the  sinner  who  repents  stands  in  a 
closer  relation  to  God  than  the  ninety  and  nine  who 
need  no  repentance.  Such  is  the  attitude  of  God  toward 
man,  and  such  also  should  be  our  own  attitude  toward 
our  fellows.  In  the  matter  of  our  social  relations  the 
one  all-important  end  is  to  secure  a  unity  of  feeling. 
It  makes  no  difference  whether  I  am  in  my  neighbor's 
debt  or  he  owes  me.  Rather,  the  more  he  owes  me  the 
more  I  am  bound  to  forgive.  The  more  he  demands  the 
more  I  am  bound  to  sacrifice.  If  he  takes  my  coat  I 
shall  offer  him  my  cloak.  If  he  smites  me  on  the  right 
cheek  I  shall  turn  the  left.  In  a  word,  the  common 
brotherhood  demands  an  absolute  self-sacrifice  and  an 
absolute  self-effacement  of  the  individual  man;  and  we 
shall  only  then  have  reached  the  ideal  of  unity  when  all 
distinctions  of  individuality  have  utterly  vanished. 

§  103.  To  this  conception  of  the  social  ideal  the  Greek 
conception  offers  a  marked  contrast.  The  oriental  seeks 
a  unity  of  feeling;  his  motive  is  esthetic  and  emotional. 
In  the  thought  of  the  Greeks  the  one  motive  that  is  ever 
dominant  and  conspicuous,  the  motive  that  characterizes 
their  literature,  their  art,  and  their  religion,  as  well  as 


1 86  Individuality  and  Unity 

their  philosophy,  is  the  intellectual.  "The  love  of 
knowledge,  says  Plato,  is  as  marked  a  characteristic 
of  the  Greeks  as  is  the  love  of  money  of  the  Phoenicians 
and  Egyptians.  From  the  dawn  of  history  to  know 
seemed  to  the  Greeks  to  be  in  itself  a  good  thing  apart 
from  all  results."23  Yet  not  to  know  coldly,  as  we  shall 
see,  —  for  the  Greek  mind  the  intellectual  verities  were 
not  the  pale  abstractions  they  often  seem  to  us  —  but 
clearly.  What  the  Greek  sought  was  to  live  in  the,  to 
him,  warm  light  of  clear  knowledge,  to  realize  in  both 
his  life  and  his  thought  that  perfect  fineness  and  definite- 
ness  of  outline  which  we  find  in  the  landscape  on  a 
bright,  clear  day. 

This  love  of  clear  vision  is  quite  alien  to  the  oriental 
mind;  and  equally  so  to  the  Christian  mind,  so  far  as 
it  is  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  primitive  and  pure  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  true  that  the  Church  has  at  various  times 
encouraged  the  pursuit  of  learning;  but  for  Christian 
feeling  knowledge  has  figured  always  as  a  suspicious 
and  dangerous  possession.  It  was  the  tree  of  knowledge 
that  corrupted  our  first  ancestors.  And  to  the  devout 
Christian  there  seems  to  be  a  certain  impiety  in  seeking 
to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  nature,  —  at  least  its  deeper 
secrets;  for  this  is  to  demand  from  God  a  knowledge 
that  He  has  not  seen  fit  to  reveal.  It  is  felt,  moreover, 
that  knowledge  offers  temptations  to  worldliness  and 
pride.  So  far  as  it  teaches  a  man  to  rely  upon  himself 
it  discourages  the  feeling  of  dependence  upon  God.  And 
Christian  ministers  are  constantly  pointing  the  contrast 
between  the  Christian  poverty  of  spirit  and  the  self- 
righteousness  of  worldly  wisdom.  True  wisdom  is  a 
matter,  not  of  knowledge,  but  of  divine  inspiration;  and 
therefore  the  most  uninstructed  of  men  in  the  wisdom 

33  Butcher's  Harvard  Lectures. 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  187 

of  the  world  may  be  the  highest  authority  in  matters  of 
holiness  and  virtue.  Indeed  one  cannot  rightly  grasp 
the  secrets  of  God  until  one  has  discarded  as  mere  dross 
all  merely  human  knowledge. 

For  the  Greek  thought  this  so-called  human  knowl- 
edge was  the  clearest  possible  authority.  And  the  most 
characteristic  feature  of  the  Greek  ethics  —  in  spite  of 
the  exceptions  taken  by  Aristotle  —  was  the  Socratic 
doctrine  that  for  the  attainment  of  virtue  knowledge 
alone  is  sufficient.  To  Socrates  it  seemed  inconceivable 
that  the  man  who  knows,  and  who  has  therefore  a  clear 
perception  of  the  difference  between  the  better  and  the 
worse,  should  fail  to  choose  the  better.  And  if  knowl- 
edge is  the  basis  of  virtue  generally  it  is  the  basis  of  social 
virtue.  But  to  know  is  to  analyze  and  distinguish,  not 
only  object  from  object,  but  object  from  subject.  And 
one  who  distinguishes  his  relations  to  his  different  neigh- 
bors can  no  longer  act  as  if  he  stood  in  the  same  relation 
to  all.  Nor  can  he  fail  to  take  account  of  himself  as  a 
universal  factor  in  these  various  relations.  His  social 
ideal  will  then  be  one  of  adjustment,  of  an  adjustment 
determined  in  each  case  by  actual  facts  and  conditions, 
—  not  a  love  which  ignores,  but  a  discerning  justice,  not 
self-sacrifice,  but  a  rightly  proportioned  self-assertion. 
In  other  words,  the  social  ideal  is  a  question,  in  the  large 
sense,  of  debit  and  credit.  And  so  we  have  this  difference : 
where  the  oriental  stands  for  humility  and  self-sacrifice, 
the  Greek  stands  for  self-assertion  and  self-respect; 
and  where  the  oriental  teaches  brotherly  love,  the  Greek 
teaches  social  justice.  Thus  the  Greek  conception  of 
society  involves  a  clear  recognition  of  individual  differ- 
ences and  individual  rights. 

In  speaking  of  the  Greek  conception  I  am  thinking 
of  course  mainly  of  the  period  of  Socrates,  Plato,  and 


l88  Individuality  and  Unity 

Aristotle.  Yet  even  here  it  may  seem  that  our  theory 
of  the  essential  individualism  of  the  Greek  conception  is 
contradicted  by  the  partial  communism  taught  in  Plato's 
"  Republic. "  But  I  think  that  we  may  treat  this  feature 
as  more  or  less  accidental.  Not  only  does  Aristotle 
condemn  the  notion,  upon  grounds  singularly  modern 
and  familiar,  it  is  quite  out  of  relation  with  the  funda- 
mental idea  of  the  "Republic"  itself.  For  the  avowed 
purpose  of  the  "  Republic  "  is  to  analyze  the  meaning  of 
justice.  For  Plato  justice  consists  in  a  due  and  pro- 
portionate consideration  of  the  several  values  in  ques- 
tion. In  the  individual  life  it  consists  in  awarding  a 
proper  measure  of  satisfaction  to  the  several  elements 
of  our  nature,  the  sensuous  desires,  the  noble  desires, 
and  the  reason.  And  the  just  state  is  only  the  just 
individual  "written  large."  In  the  state  the  three  ele- 
ments of  human  nature,  sensuous,  high-minded,  and 
rational,  are  represented  by  the  respective  classes  of 
artisans,  warriors,  and  philosophers.  Justice  consists, 
then,  in  a  constitutional  classification  of  citizens  under 
which  each  will  hold  the  position  which  his  nature 
demands.  And  in  an  ideally  just  state  there  will  be  per- 
fect happiness  for  all.  Accordingly,  when  Plato  pre- 
scribes a  community  of  property  and  of  wives  for  his 
upper  class  of  warriors  and  philosophers,  he  does  not 
conceive  that  he  is  demanding  of  them  any  serious  "  self- 
sacrifice  for  the  common  good."  Rather  is  he  depriving 
them,  though  for  the  common  good,  of  that  which,  for 
men  of  their  kind,  is  of  the  least  personal  importance, 
or  for  that  matter,  from  the  standpoint  of  their  real 
interests,  a  positive  nuisance.  In  this  he  is  no  doubt 
mistaken,  and  his  argument  is  forced.  It  remains  none 
the  less  true  that  the  meaning  of  the  "Republic"  is 
essentially  individualistic. 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  189 

§  104.  We  have  seen  that  the  Christian  ideal  is 
intimately  personal.  In  the  same  sense  it  may  be  said 
that  the  tendency  of  the  Greek  is  to  be  rather  imper- 
sonal. That  is  to  say,  not  in  the  sense  of  "disinter- 
ested," but  in  the  "distant"  sense  of  impersonal  in 
which  we  distinguish  a  personal  from  a  business  relation. 
The  relation  of  man  to  man  as  such  was  for  the  Greeks 
not  so  intimate  a  relation  as  it  is  for  Christianity.  For 
Christianity  the  typical  social  group  is  the  family,  and 
the  typical  social  relation  is  that  of  brotherhood.  We 
are  even  more  absolutely  one  in  essence  than  as  brothers 
by  blood  we  can  ever  be.  For  the  Greeks  the  typical 
social  group  was  the  state,  not  the  imperial  state  of 
Rome  or  modern  Germany  or  Britain,  but  the  peculiar 
city-state  of  Athens  and  Sparta,  in  which  the  term  "citi- 
zen" stood  for  a  rather  neighborly  relation.  The  typical 
social  relation  was  therefore  somewhat  less  intimate  than 
the  fraternal  relation  but  much  more  intimate  than  the 
relation  implied,  say,  in  American  citizenship.  It  might 
be  approximately  indicated  by  the  sort  of  relation 
which  exists  between  members  of  a  voluntary  association 
or  a  neighborhood  club.  If  we  develop  the  conception 
of  social  organization  which  is  given  only  in  outline 
by  Plato  we  might  perhaps  transform  his  lower  order 
into  an  association  for  industrial  cooperation.  His 
upper  classes  would  then  constitute  "the  army"  (as  this 
phrase  is  understood  in  Europe)  and  a  parliament  of 
gentlemen.  The  relations  of  men  in  these  upper  classes 
would  be  marked  by  perfect  kindliness  and  courtesy,  by 
mutual  consideration,  and  by  a  mutual  appreciation 
amounting  in  many  cases  to  a  warm  personal  sympathy. 
But  in  all  this  no  one  ever  forgets  himself  or  fails  to 
remember  what  is  due  individually  to  himself  and  his 
fellows.  That  is  to  say,  in  the  most  intimate  of  personal 


190  Individuality  and  Unity 

relations  he  never  loses  his  own  personality  in  that  of 
his  fellows. 

Such,  then,  are  the  two  more  prominent  conceptions 
of  social  unity  to  be  found  in  our  modern  culture,  — 
on  the  one  hand  the  Hebrew-Christian  conception  of 
society  as  a  family,  on  the  other  hand  the  Greek  con- 
ception of  society  as  an  association  or  club.  Now  it  is 
very  interesting  to  note  that,  while  we  set  both  ideals 
before  us,  we  hold  them  more  or  less  apart.  Consider, 
for  example,  the  attitude  of  the  typical  citizen  of  a  small 
American  community.  He  goes  to  church  on  Sunday 
and  learns  the  lessons  of  humility,  self-sacrifice,  and 
brotherly  love.  And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  for 
the  time  being  he  is  sincere.  But  by  Monday  he  has  no 
intention  either  of  turning  the  left  cheek,  or  of  selling  all 
his  goods  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  or  of  sacrificing  his 
family  in  the  larger  interests  of  society.  Nor  does  he 
think  that  he  ought  to  do  these  things.  In  fact,  when  he 
comes  to  the  point,  he  is  certain  that  he  ought  not.  Nor, 
when  business-hours  are  over,  does  he  resume  the  Chris- 
tian ideal  as  a  guide  for  general  social  intercourse.  His 
offer  or  acceptance  of  an  invitation  to  dinner  is  deter- 
mined strictly  by  his  relations  to  the  individuals  in 
question,  to  some -degree  on  the  basis  of  debit  and  credit. 
At  most  it  is  in  his  family  life  where  the  Christian  ideals 
are  frankly  accepted,  or  in  the  administration  of  charity, 
-  though  even  here  he  does  not,  in  these  days  of  scien- 
tific charity,  neglect  the  considerations  of  utility  and 
personal  desert. 

I  state  this  as  an  interesting  fact.  Having  made  the 
same  statement  in  another  connection  I  was  surprised 
to  find  it  interpreted  as  a  charge  of  hypocrisy  against 
those  professing  Christian  principles.  Such,  however,  is 
far  from  my  meaning.  To  me  the  interest  of  the  fact 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  191 

lies  in  this:  that  in  spite  of  the  centuries  of  dominance 
exercised  by  the  Church,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
term  "  Christendom"  is  used  to  distinguish  our  European 
civilization,  and  the  term  "Christian"  to  distinguish  our 
European  moral  ideals,  the  conceptions  which  guide  our 
practical  working  life,  and  our  estimation  of  values, 
intellectual  and  moral,  are  still  essentially  Greek.  From 
the  Greeks  we  have  inherited,  not  only  our  science,  but 
our  more  deliberate  moral  ideals. 

§  105.  Now  the  whole  purpose  of  these  lectures  is  to 
justify  and  develop  this  Greek  point  of  view.  Their 
fundamental  thesis  is  the  Socratic  doctrine  that  virtue 
is  knowledge.  Yet  it  is  not  my  aim  to  show  that  broth- 
erly love  is  a  mere  illusion.  Such  an  extreme  view  would, 
indeed,  be  forbidden  by  my  own  principles;  for  it  would 
amount  to  setting  aside  as  quite  meaningless  and  un- 
worthy of  consideration  an  expression  of  the  social  ideal 
which  has  been  preferred  by  a  large  part  of  the  race. 
Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  have  I  any  intention  of  exalting 
the  special  features  of  the  ancient  Greek  ideal.  To  my 
mind,  for  example,  Aristotle's  picture  of  the  high-minded, 
or  magnanimous  man  —  a  favorite  object,  by  the  way,  of 
Christian  criticism  —  represents  a  noble  ethical  ideal. 
Yet  it  would  be  strange  if,  for  us  of  today,  the  pic- 
ture were  without  blemish.  Its  blemishes,  however,  are 
such  from  the  standpoint  of  magnanimity  itself.  To  de- 
cline to  accept  a  favor  from  a  friend,  to  insist  always  that 
the  balance  of  obligation  be  on  the  other  side,  these  are 
evidences  not  of  an  exalted  magnanimity,  but  of  a  cer- 
tain lack  of  it.  It  is  also  a  rather  poor  sort  of  greatness 
which  demands  for  its  satisfaction  an  environment  of 
inferior  minds.  Such  an  attitude  argues,  indeed,  a  cer- 
tain distrust  of  self.  The  test  of  a  genuine  magnanimity, 
of  an  assured  belief  in  self,  is  to  be  able  rather  to  accept 


192  Individuality  and  Unity 

a  favor  gracefully,  and  to  make  a  generous  acknowledg- 
ment of  obligation,  without  admission  of  inferiority  or 
loss  of  self-respect. 

We  may  then  express  the  relations  of  love  and  justice 
in  the  following  form.  We  shall  say,  first,  that  brotherly 
love  is  indeed  our  social  ideal,  not,  however,  as  the  an- 
tithesis of  justice,  but  only  as  its  final  fulfilment.  In 
other  words,  love  is  the  final  perfection  and  refinement  of 
the  distributive  relation.  It  is  the  relation  which  exists 
between  men  who  have  reached  an  understanding  which 
embraces  not  only  their  business  or  professional  inter- 
ests, not  only  their  interests  in  art,  or  science,  or  sport, 
or  politics,  or  social  improvement,  but  together  with 
these,  as  involved  in  them  all,  those  interests  which  for 
each  are  most  personal  and  intimate.  And  thus,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  shall  say  that  justice  is  the  substance  and 
structure  of  love.  It  is  therefore  true  that  love  is  a 
personal  relation,  and  that  justice,  so  far  as  it  has  not 
reached  the  refinement  of  love,  is  relatively  impersonal. 
But  the  personal  interests  include  in  their  last  analysis 
all  the  impersonal.  The  personality  of  a  man,  so  far  as 
he  is  in  truth  a  person,  expresses  itself  in  all  the  depart- 
ments of  his  life.  A  personal  sympathy  for  him  which 
fails  to  express  itself  in  a  practical  adjustment  with  any 
of  his  various  aims  is  therefore,  so  far,  meaningless. 
And  a  social  relation  is  equally  meaningless  if  it  fails 
to  express  itself  in  a  mutual  adjustment,  which  takes 
account  of  individual  services  and  their  several  relations, 
including  those  of  debit  and  credit.  And  therefore  we 
shall  say  that  love  without  justice  is  so  far  an  unmean- 
ing conception.  Genuine  love  presupposes  that  justice 
is  satisfied. 

It  is  here  that  I  take  issue  with  the  special  doctrine 
of  love  represented  in  the  Christian  religion.  In  the 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  193 

Christian  teaching  the  feeling  is  its  own  justification. 
It  is  not  to  be  analyzed  or  to  look  for  justification  on  any 
external  grounds.  As  man  is  justified  to  God  by  his 
faith,  so  is  he  to  be  justified  to  his  fellow-man  by  his  love, 
or,  as  the  case  may  be,  by  his  sorrow  and  contrition. 
Considerations  of  debit  and  credit,  or  of  guarantee  for 
future  payment  or  good  behavior,  are  not  to  enter  the 
question.  According  to  my  view,  every  feeling  must 
seek  its  justification  in  facts.  I  do  not  say  that  brotherly 
feeling  is  not  to  be  cultivated,  certainly  not  that  gener- 
ous instincts  are  to  be  accounted  a  vice.  Nor  do  I  say 
that  love  must  be  based  upon  calculation,  and  kept  in 
absolute  restraint  until  calculation  is  complete.  In  the 
nature  of  the  case  it  must  be  that  the  appreciation  of 
unity  will  be  often  in  advance  of  the  clear  grounds  for  it, 
and  for  our  human  consciousness  never  finally  accounted 
for  on  a  perfectly  rational  basis.  What  I  do  say  is  this, 
that  every  feeling  of  love  must  seek,  and  constantly  seek, 
its  justification  on  clear,  rational  grounds.  Any  feeling 
that  refuses  the  test  is  so  far  an  evasion;  and  any  feeling 
that  is  unable  to  meet  the  test  is  so  far  an  illusion. 

§  106.  This  idea  of  the  relationship  is  nothing  original 
or  new.  It  is  even  commonplace.  But  this  common- 
place conception  of  the  relation  of  love  and  justice 
contains  implications  of  a  wider  philosophical  import, 
which  it  will  be  worth  our  while  to  consider.  For  in  the 
original  opposition  of  these  ideas  you  will  have  dis- 
cerned, no  doubt,  first,  the  contrast  between  a  mystical 
and  a  realistic  view  of  things,  secondly,  the  contrast 
between  an  esthetic  attitude  and  an  attitude  strictly 
practical  and  scientific,  —  in  other  words,  intellectual- 
istic.  It  is  therefore  to  our  purpose  to  inquire  into  the 
meaning  of  the  values  represented  by  these  contrasted 
sets  of  conceptions. 
13 


194  Individuality  and  Unity 

The  Christian  conception  of  brotherly  love  is,  I  say, 
a  mystical  conception.  The  Church  itself  recognizes 
this  in  declaring  that  the  Church,  or  the  brotherly  unity, 
is  the  mystical  body  of  Christ.  But  mysticism,  as  we 
learn  from  Professor  Royce,  is  not  merely  a  general  term 
for  what  is  vague.  It  is  the  expression  of  a  rather  well- 
defined  principle,  namely,  that  the  real  is  what  is  grasped 
immediately,  in  direct  experience.  Thus  the  reality  of 
color  or  tone  is  the  pure  sensation,  untouched  by  dis- 
criminating analysis;  the  reality  of  love  is  the  pure 
feeling.  Now,  as  we  shall  see,  the  real  is  likewise  for  us 
the  immediate.  But  it  is  also  more;  it  is  the  imme- 
diate made  transparent  by  thought.24  To  the  oriental 
mind,  however,  of  which  the  mystical  philosophy  is 
chiefly  typical,  thought,  in  our  sense,  is  theoretically 
vicious.  For  —  to  the  oriental  mind  —  thought  does 
nothing  but  introduce  distinctions  and  differences.  And 
in  the  world  of  distinctions  everything  is  what  it  is 
because  it  is  not  something  else.  Red  is  red  because  it  is 
not  blue.  In  the  social  world  the  distinction  is  of  meum 
and  tuum.  I  am  poor  because  you  are  rich.  These 
differences  are  introduced  by  the  institution  of  property, 
upon  which,  in  some  sort,  all  distinctions  of  individuality 
ultimately  rest.  Hence,  to  the  mystical  mind  the  whole 
world  of  thought,  and  of  experience  so  far  as  it  is  mixed 
with  thought,  is  infected  with  negation.  As  such  it  is 
not  a  real  world,  but  a  world  of  mere  appearance,  - 
an  illusion.  How,  then,  shall  we  penetrate  to  the  real? 
The  mystic's  answer  is :  go  back  to  the  immediate  feeling. 
Abandon  the  illusions  of  thought,  deny  its  distinctions 
and  negations.  Abolish  the  institution  of  property,  and 
remove  every  possible  ground  for  individual  self-asser- 
tion. Forgive  all  your  debtors;  wipe  the  slate  clean; 
84  See  §  120. 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  195 

and  treat  all  men  simply  as  brothers  in  love.  And  so, 
for  our  special  purposes  we  may  say  that  the  mystic  is 
the  man  who  finds  reality  in  the  absence  of  distinctions. 

§  107.  Thus  the  outcome  of  mysticism  is  communism. 
The  mystical  unity-without-difference  demands  for  its 
logical  realization,  not  only  a  community  of  property, 
but  of  wives,  of  children,  in  fact  of  all  aims  and  ambi- 
tions which  could  possibly  distinguish,  and  thus  separate, 
man  and  man.  And  on  the  other  hand  I  may  point  out 
that  every  communistic  theory  of  society  rests  upon  ulti- 
mately mystical  grounds.  The  Christian  conception  is 
in  its  intent  distinctly  communistic.  Primitive  Chris- 
tianity was  such;  and  every  return  to  "pure  Christian- 
ity" has  shown  a  similar  tendency,  including  at  times  the 
community  of  women,  or  at  least  the  abstention  from 
sexual  relations,  which,  logically  and  sincerely,  is  implied 
in  the  mystical  ideal.  Similarly,  the  whole  attitude  of 
Christianity  toward  the  world  has  been,  in  theory  at 
least,  consistently  mystical  and  oriental.  In  spite  of 
the  struggle  of  Church  and  of  Churchmen  for  wealth 
and  power,  "pure  religion"  has  always  been  understood 
to  involve  a  certain  contempt  for  the  world,  a  treatment 
of  the  things  of  here  and  now  as  mere  appearance,  or 
not-being. 

From  mysticism  to  modern  socialism  seems  a  far  cry. 
And  indeed  I  hesitate  to  introduce  the  term  "socialism" 
into  the  discussion  at  all,  first  because  of  a  limited  knowl- 
edge of  the  literature  of  scientific  socialism,  secondly 
because,  as  I  think  most  persons  would  admit,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  find  any  two  socialists  who  attach  the  same 
extension  of  meaning  to  the  term.  There  seem  to  be  all 
grades  of  socialists,  from  those  who  stand  for  a  revolu- 
tionary reorganization  of  the  social  order  to  those  who 
advocate  a  rather  modest  degree  of  state-supervision; 


196  Individuality  and  Unity 

and  for  the  stupidly  conservative  every  one  is  a  "social- 
ist" who  believes  in  any  measure  of  social  reform.  Yet 
I  think  I  may  venture  to  say  that  the  mystical  element 
which  characterizes  the  communistic  theory  is  present  in 
greater  or  less  degree  in  nearly  all,  if  not  all,  forms  of 
socialism.  And  it  is  this  mystical  element,  this  assertion 
of  an  opaque  " common  good,"  which  still  differentiates 
socialism  from  individualism.  Present-day  socialism 
does  not,  like  communism,  stand  for  a  community  of 
goods,  —  that  is,  of  consumption  goods.  But  it  makes 
a  distinction  between  the  goods  of  consumption  and 
the  goods  used  in  production.  The  state  may  then 
freely  leave  to  each  individual  the  consumption  and 
enjoyment  of  the  necessaries  or  luxuries  once  rightfully 
his  own;  here  the  distinction  of  property  is  to  remain  in 
full  force;  but  it  will  strictly  control  the  use  of  goods 
used  in  production,  or  perhaps  take  entire  charge  of 
them,  to  make  sure  that  the  productive  forces  of  nature 
and  of  society  are  utilized  for  the  common  good.  In 
this  denial  of  individual  rights  in  the  instruments  of 
production,  or  of  individual  freedom  in  productive  activi- 
ties, we  have,  I  think,  a  distinct  survival  of  communism, 
which,  again,  is  an  expression  of  the  mystical  motive. 

How  is  the  individual  to  be  induced  to  regulate  his 
productive  activities  for  the  good  of  all?  Well,  partly, 
no  doubt,  by  a  set  of  institutions  which  will  offer  him 
on  the  one  hand  positive  encouragement,  and  on  the 
other  hand  will  prescribe  penalties  for  the  exploitation 
of  productive  conditions  for  private  ends.  So  far,  in- 
deed, the  conception  is  not  mystical.  But  so  far  the 
scheme  of  socialism  differs  not  a  whit  in  idea  from  the 
individualism  advocated  by  Bentham.  Whether  social 
welfare  is  to  be  secured  through  state-enterprise  or 
private  enterprise  is  a  matter  of  detail;  but  if  we  are 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  197 

to  rely  upon  "sanctions,"  then  it  must  be  said  that  no 
sanctions  would  be  finally  effective  in  calling  forth  indi- 
vidual interest  and  energy  which  failed  to  offer  the 
fullest  satisfaction  to  individual  aims;  and  a  socialism 
which  rested  upon  these  motives  would  also  be  an  indi- 
vidualism. While  these  motives  may  be  accepted  by 
many  socialists  as  expressing  the  logic  of  their  view,  they 
are  by  no  means  the  kind  upon  which  socialism  chiefly 
depends.  The  more  common  idea,  I  should  say,  is  that 
human  energy  will  necessarily  be  turned  into  social  chan- 
nels if  the  opportunity  for  exploitation  be  withdrawn. 
For  human  energies  are  essentially  disinterested.  The 
really  propulsive  motive  is  "the  instinct  of  workman- 
ship." That  this  should  develop  into  a  system  of  ex- 
ploitation for  private  ends  is  an  accident  of  present 
social  conditions.  Change  the  conditions,  remove  the 
opportunity,  and  men  will  work  cheerfully  for  the  com- 
mon good.  Here,  then,  I  say  that  the  logic  of  socialism 
is  mystical.  The  assumption  upon  which  it  rests  is  that 
the  absence  of  competition  is  harmony,  the  absence  of 
self-seeking  a  single-eyed  devotion  to  the  common  good. 

§  1 08.  It  is  rather  difficult  to  deal  with  mysticism  on 
logical  grounds;  for  the  mystic  has  renounced  logic.  All 
that  we  can  do  is  to  follow  his  directions  for  the  quest 
of  reality  and  ask  ourselves  where  we  come  out.  Pro- 
fessor Royce  has  applied  this  method  to  the  mystical 
conception  of  being  and  finds  that  the  result  is — nothing. 
A  distinctionless  being  is  simply  no  being  whatever. 
Just  the  same  is  true  of  social  being.  The  absence 
of  individual  distinctions  is  not  unity.  It  is  simply  no 
social  fact  whatever. 

The  communist  (as  I  may  style  all  the  representatives 
of  this  point  of  view)  points  out  that  the  greatest  dif- 
ficulties with  which  our  social  problems  are  concerned, 


198  Individuality  and  Unity 

are  connected  with  the  institution  of  property.  This 
institution  is  involved,  more  or  less  nearly  or  remotely, 
in  every  question  of  personal  rights.  He  thinks,  there- 
fore, that  by  abolishing  property,  and  removing  the 
chief  ground  of  strife  and  discord,  he  will  attain  a  unity. 
But,  in  the  first  place,  from  the  fact  that  all  social  prob- 
lems are  connected  with  the  ownership  of  property  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  property  is  the  cause  of  discord. 
Rather  is  it  the  expression  of  a  difference  which  lies  deep 
within  the  nature  of  the  individuals  themselves,  which 
is  bound  to  persist  as  a  difference,  and  will  persist  as 
a  discord,  under  any  external  conditions,  as  long  as 
individual  self-assertion  is  blind  and  uncontrolled  by 
reason.  But  let  us  assume  that  the  communist  is  right, 
and  that  the  abolition  of  property  would  remove  the 
cause  of  discord  and  injustice;  what  would  then  be  the 
result?  Clearly,  not  brotherly  love,  but  a  condition 
of  mutual  indifference.  For  it  must  be  remembered 
always  that  personal  regard  presupposes  as  its  elementary 
condition  a  freedom  of  action  on  the  part  of  its  object. 
I  do  not  love  my  fellow  because  the  external  conditions 
hinder  him  from  treating  me  unjustly,  or  offer  him  no 
inducement,  but  because,  in  the  face  of  such  an  induce- 
ment, he  chooses  to  treat  me  justly.  The  abolition  of 
property  might  then,  indeed,  remove  the  ground  of  dis- 
cord; it  would  at  the  same  time  remove  the  ground  for 
any  personal  feeling  whatever.  My  fellow-man  would 
cease  to  be  an  interesting  object.  And  in  ceasing  to  be 
an  interesting  object,  he  would  also,  according  to  all 
psychological  analogies,  cease  to  be  any  object  whatever. 
In  a  word,  that  keen  and  lively  consciousness  of  them- 
selves and  of  each  other  which  now  distinguishes  the 
race  of  men  from  those  of  animals  and  the  higher  races 
of  men  from  the  lower,  —  all  this  would  vanish  and  at 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  199 

best  there  would  remain  only  the  relatively  automatic 
coordination  of  individual  movements  which  marks  the 
gregarious  animals  and  to  some  degree  the  primitive 
clan-stage  of  human  culture. 

The  same  argument  applies  to  the  mystical  unity  of 
productive  energy.  The  socialist,  noting  the  waste  both 
of  human  energy  and  of  natural  resources  under  our 
system  of  free  competition,  the  restriction  of  opportu- 
nity to  the  stronger,  and  the  exploitation  by  the  stronger 
of  the  weaker,  aims  to  cure  these  evils  by  forbidding 
free  competition  and  forcing  the  stream  of  productive 
activity  into  the  channel  of  the  common  good.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  absence  of  competition  would 
be  a  productive  unity.  Here  again  the  absence  of  dif- 
ference may  be  simply  ^difference.  The  absence  of 
struggle  may  be,  not  love,  but  death.  That  this  may 
be  the  result  is  amply  suggested  by  the  indifference 
which  now  pervades  our  public  service  as  contrasted 
with  private  enterprise.  The  question  is  how  these  self- 
regarding  activities  are  to  be  kept  still  active  though 
no  longer  self-regarding.  And  the  question  contains  its 
own  answer.  The  nature  of  man  is  not  to  be  changed 
by  act  of  parliament,  —  except  so  far  as  the  act  of  parlia- 
ment furnishes  a  free  and  rational  expression  for  the 
nature  of  man.  But  no  act  of  parliament  can,  merely 
as  such,  make  the  irrational  rational.  And  it  seems  to 
me  that  any  one  who  expects  to  convert  a  group  of 
blindly  self-regarding  agents  into  a  social  unity  by  the 
force  of  law,  the  force  of  the  law  depending  upon  the  will 
of  the  agents  in  question,  is  attempting  the  old  feat  of 
raising  oneself  by  one's  boot-straps.  If  there  is  to  be 
any  new  force  for  social  unity  it  must  come  whence  all 
social  forces  come,  from  an  intelligent  analysis  of  individ- 
ual interests  and  a  scientific  discovery  and  invention  of 


2OO  Individuality  and  Unity 

methods  of  coordination.  If  the  self -regarding  energies 
which  now  do,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  keep  the  social  organ- 
ism alive,  are  to  be  made  socially  more  effective,  if  these 
energies  are  to  be,  not  simply  extinguished,  but  utilized, 
it  can  never  be  by  a  social  order  which  merely  restricts 
their  scope  of  operation,  but  only  by  a  scientific  co- 
ordination which,  in  studying  individual  interests,  and 
adjusting  interest  to  interest,  offers  a  more  intelligent 
inducement  to  self-regard,  makes  a  more  intelligent 
demand  upon  the  individual  and  gives  him,  as  a  produc- 
tive agent,  an  even  greater  liberty  than  he  has  at  present. 
§  109.  This  will  make  the  social  problem  a  very  dif- 
ficult one;  but  the  very  difficulty  will  help  to  explain 
what  I  mean  by  saying  that  communism,  socialism,  and 
the  Christian  conception  of  brotherly  love  are  all  in 
various  degrees  the  expression  of  a  mystical  tendency 
of  thought.  For  the  essence  of  the  mystical  tendency 
is  to  be  appalled  by  intellectual  difficulty;  and  then  to 
treat  a  baffling  complexity  of  demands  and  conditions 
as  an  evidence  of  meaningless  unreality.  The  mystical 
attitude  is  that  of  the  man  who,  overwhelmed  by  the 
complexities  of  civilized  life,  sighs  for  primitive  sim- 
plicity and  thinks  to  find  there  true  satisfaction  and 
peace.  For  the  mystic  the  individualism  of  our  modern 
life  is  so  much  vain  strife;  and  true  satisfaction  is  to  be 
found  only  in  the  state  of  love  and  mutual  helpfulness 
which  comes  through  self-renunciation.  But  here  he  is 
the  victim  of  an  illusion.  The  absence  of  self-seeking 
would  be,  not  love  and  helpfulness,  but  indifference  and 
the  cessation  of  activity,  a  general  lowering  of  the  mean- 
ing and  reality  of  life.  The  social  problem  is  not  a 
problem  of  renunciation,  voluntary  or  enforced, — renun- 
ciation, indeed,  presents  no  problem.  It  is  the  problem 
rather  of  adjusting  individual  interests  in  mutual  satis- 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  201 

faction  and  freedom.  That  these  interests  are  the 
outcome  of  a  "social"  process  of  comparison  makes  no 
difference.  Once  denned  they  are  facts,  and  like  other 
facts  they  are  not  to  be  evaded  or  renounced,  but  only 
to  be  satisfied. 

The  history  of  civilization  records  the  development 
of  a  constantly  increasing  complexity  of  such  facts,  of 
a  constantly  more  marked  difference,  and  a  constantly 
more  comprehensive  and  freer  adjustment.  Our  modern 
individualism  is  no  temporary  aberration,  no  merely 
preparatory  stage  to  a  final  state  of  self-effacing  com- 
munism. It  represents  a  positive  attainment  in  the 
direction  of  the  higher  culture.  The  institution  of  free 
competition  is  itself  the  mark  of  a  higher  state  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  consequently  of  a  more  comprehensive  unity 
of  individual  interests.  It  marks  a  state  in  which  as 
compared  with  slavery  or  feudalism,  a  man's  contribu- 
tion to  the  social  good  is  the  expression  of  his  own  free 
will,  —  free  in  the  only  sense  in  which  his  will  can  here 
be  free,  as  finding  in  the  satisfaction  of  the  demands  of 
society  a  profit  for  himself.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  competition,  however  destructive,  is  still  in  its  own 
degree  constructive.  And  I  think  we  may  say  that  the 
competitive  regime  is  not  only  freer  but  socially  more 
productive  than  any  that  has  existed  before.  Any  still 
higher  unity  must  then,  not  efface,  but  fully  satisfy  the 
motives  represented  in  the  present  institution.  Only 
on  these  conditions  will  it  be  a  real  unity,  and  only  thus 
will  love  be  a  reality,  —  that  is  to  say,  only  so  far  as  the 
harmony  of  interests  is  expressed,  not  merely  in  feeling, 
but  in  the  economic  constitution  of  the  social  order. 

§  no.  When  we  set  up  brotherly  love  as  our  ideal  of 
the  social  relation  what  we  have  in  mind  is  the  real  unity 
which  as  a  rule  characterizes  the  family  relation  as 


2O2  Individuality  and  Unity 

distinct  from  the  separateness  of  men  in  their  business 
relations.  We  then  make  the  family  relation  our  ideal 
for  the  organization  of  society  as  a  whole.  And  so  far 
we  are  right  enough.  But  we  should  not  undertake  to 
make  this  extension  of  the  family  idea  without  analyzing 
the  conditions  upon  which  the  unity  of  the  family  rests. 
The  family  life  of  intelligent  people  is  very  far  from  a 
state  of  common  self-effacement.  The  ideal  family  pre- 
supposes a  nice  distinction  of  individual  rights,  respon- 
sibilities, and  duties,  in  the  fulfilment  of  which  there  is 
mutual  self-respect.  The  agitation  for  the  emancipa- 
tion of  women,  so-called,  is,  in  part  at  least,  an  expres- 
sion of  this  very  ideal.  It  is  by  no  means  hostile  to  the 
family  unity,  but  aims  rather  to  make  the  unity  of  the 
family  a  richer  and  more  positively  social  fact.  And 
upon  the  positive  character  of  this  fact,  upon  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  individuals  in  the  family,  the  respect 
accorded  to  individual  rights,  and  the  fineness  and 
intelligence  of  the  social  adjustment,  —  upon  this  will  de- 
pend, not  only  its  economic  effectiveness,  but  its  human- 
izing influence  as  a  stimulant  of  higher  sympathies  and 
appreciations.  The  rights  of  the  individual  in  the  fam- 
ily are  no  doubt  very  different  from  those  defined  by 
law.  The  father  who  in  early  and  middle  life  makes 
heavy  sacrifices  for  the  education  of  his  sons  is  not  neces- 
sarily expecting  them  to  support  him  in  his  old  age.  He 
is  thinking  rather  of  seeing  them  well  established  in  an 
honorable  position.  But  at  the  same  time  he  is  thinking 
of  himself  as  their  parent,  recognized  as  such  in  their 
affection  and  respect,  and  enjoying,  through  this  social 
relation,  the  fruits  of  his  investment.  He  may  suspect 
that  his  anticipations  are  pitched  rather  high.  None 
the  less  they  furnish,  as  assumptions,  the  ground  and 
justification  —  the  necessary  justification — of  his  action. 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  203 

Could  he  definitely  foresee  himself  in  the  position  of 
a  parent  disowned  and  despised,  his  interest  would  be 
gone,  his  efforts  would  be  paralyzed,  and  his  love  would 
be  utterly  dissipated.  For  not  even  can  parental  affec- 
tion survive  the  destruction  of  the  illusion  that  affection 
will  be  cherished  in  return.  In  the  family  as  elsewhere 
there  can  be  no  real  love  which  is  not  at  least  conceived 
to  be  a  reciprocal  relation. 

So  far,  then,  from  regarding  the  family  as  a  place  of 
general  self-effacement,  we  should  expect  it  rather  to  be 
the  place  where  the  individual  is  to  enjoy  the  fullest 
self-expression  and  freedom.  The  family  is  the  one  place 
where  we  expect  to  air  our  opinions  of  men  and  of 
things  without  fear  of  misunderstanding.  It  is  the  one 
place  where,  if  at  all,  we  tolerate  any  analysis  or  criti- 
cism of  the  more  intimate  aspects  of  our  personal  charac- 
ter. On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  one  place  where  we 
recognize  the  right  of  others  to  disregard  the  conven- 
tional rules  and  to  impose  upon  us  a  consideration  of 
their  personal  peculiarities.  In  a  word,  it  is  the  place 
of  ah1  places  where  by  common  consent  each  may  be 
most  freely  and  completely  himself. 

What,  then,  are  the  conditions  upon  which  this  fam- 
ily unity  rests?  When  we  analyze  the  situation  more 
closely  we  find  that,  so  far  as  the  unity  is  genuine  and 
not  a  merely  sentimental  or  hypocritical  appearance,  it 
is  no  mere  unity  of  feeling  but  at  the  same  time  of  concrete 
fact.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  a  unity  of  actual  adaptation 
based  upon  an  actual  mutual  understanding.  And  when 
we  look  further  we  find  that  for  mutual  understanding 
the  conditions  are  peculiarly  favorable.  There  is,  in 
the  first  place,  as  a  rule,  the  inheritance  of  common 
tastes  from  common  ancestors,  which  is  suggested  in  the 
saying  that  blood  is  thicker  than  water.  Yet  we  should 


204  Individuality  and  Unity 

not  attach  too  much  importance  to  this  condition  in  it- 
self. Community  of  taste  serves  no  doubt,  in  a  mechani- 
cal fashion,  to  fix  the  scope  of  family  activities  within 
a  certain  definite  field,  and  thus  in  some  degree  to  narrow 
the  range  of  the  problem  of  coordination.  But  con- 
sciousness of  kind,  to  use  Professor  Giddings'  phrase, 
will  not  of  itself  constitute  a  social  relation.  Or  rather 
we  should  say  that  the  consciousness  of  kind  cannot, 
as  consciousness,  be  keener  than  the  consciousness  of 
difference.  And  in  the  family  the  coordination  of  dif- 
ferences is  facilitated  by  another  condition  which  quite 
frequently  makes  water  thicker  than  blood,  the  con- 
dition, namely,  of  constant  and  intimate  association. 

This  is  the  really  important  factor  in  the  explanation 
of  the  superior  force  of  family  ties;  and  to  the  extent 
that  the  condition  prevails,  it  leads  to  a  similar  result 
in  circles  beyond  the  family.  Yet  of  the  distinctively 
social  relation  it  is  the  condition  rather  than  the  cause. 
Mere  association  may  result  in  habituation,  but  this  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  understanding,  or  love.  Love 
is  the  conscious  mutual  adjustment  of  self-conscious 
agents.  And  the  importance  of  the  factor  of  close 
association  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  close  association  of 
self-conscious  agents  is  bound,  so  far  as  they  are  con- 
scious, to  result  in  a  mutual  consciousness  and  —  neces- 
sarily —  a  mutual  adjustment.  And  this  is  the  finally 
important  point:  the  love  which  at  its  best,  i.e.,  among 
persons  of  developed  character  and  mind,  characterizes 
the  relations  of  the  family  circle,  is  real  because  it 
stands,  not  for  a  mere  feeling,  but  also  for  a  practical 
understanding  and  adjustment. 

§  in.  The  situation  is  very  different  when  we  step 
beyond  the  smaller  circle  of  family  and  friends  into  the 
larger  field  of  society  and  the  state.  Here  the  conditions 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love 

that  facilitate  mutual  understanding  and  sympathy  in 
the  smaller  circle  are  largely  wanting.  The  space  and 
time  conditions  of  general  social  intercourse,  the  limita- 
tions of  attention  in  the  individual  man,  the  expenditure 
of  nervous  force  required  for  keeping  up  a  wide  acquaint- 
ance, —  all  of  these  conspire  to  restrict  the  active 
interests  of  the  individual  to  a  relatively  small  number 
of  his  fellows  and  to  reduce  to  a  rather  low  degree  the 
element  of  personal  sympathy  in  society  at  large.  The 
limits  of  sympathy  are  not  rigidly  fixed.  For  the  con- 
scious agent  no  limits  are  ultimately  fixed.  But  in  any 
case  the  fraternal  relation  is  here  a  problem  rather  than  a 
fact.  That  is  to  say,  brotherly  love  is  not  an  actual 
social  condition,  not  even  in  any  clear  sense  an  actual 
psychological  condition,  but  an  unrealized,  and  still  far 
from  realized,  social  ideal.  And  here  as  elsewhere  the 
confusion  of  the  ideal  and  the  real  results  on  the  one 
hand  in  sentimentalism,  more  or  less  conventional  or 
emotional  as  the  case  may  be,  and  on  the  other  hand  in 
obscuring  the  real  nature  of  the  problem.  There  can  be 
no  real  social  unity  which  does  not  stand  for  an  actual 
interweaving  of  individual  interests,  no  real  social  sym- 
pathy which  does  not  stand  for  an  intelligent  compre- 
hension of  these  interests.  The  problem  of  capital  and 
labor,  for  example,  is  not  proximately  a  question  of  love 
but  of  the  personal  motives  and  economic  conditions  for 
which  these  terms  severally  stand.  And  when  I  hear  a 
pastor  proclaiming  that  he  loves  every  member  of  a 
rather  large  flock,  I,  at  least,  am  led,  not  so  much  to 
doubt  his  sincerity,  as  to  wonder  whether  he  has  so 
studied  the  meaning  of  love  as  to  appreciate  the  tre- 
mendous responsibilities  which  his  assertion  involves. 
Love  may  be  quite  real  within  a  relatively  narrow  circle. 
And  toward  our  fellow-men  in  the  world  at  large  we  may 


206  Individuality  and  Unity 

cultivate  an  attitude  of  open-mindedness  and  good  will. 
We  may,  and  ought,  to  find  a  generous  pleasure  in  every 
enlargement  of  our  sympathies.  But  to  claim  that  we 
love  our  fellow-man,  simply  as  our  fellow-man,  is  to 
assert  a  measure  of  actual  sympathy  and  comprehension 
which  is  absurdly  far  from  real. 

§  112.  A  social  situation  in  which  mutual  under- 
standing were  universally  complete,  and  brotherly  sym- 
pathy universally  diffused,  would  imply  that  all  the 
physical  conditions  which  separate  man  and  man,  and 
create  a  hostility  of  interests,  had  been  finally  mastered. 
It  would  then  be  a  society,  no  longer  of  men,  but  of  gods. 
This  conception  marks,  no  doubt,  the  direction  of  our 
social  ideal.  From  a  social  point  of  view,  our  struggle 
to  overcome  our  environment  is  a  struggle  to  break  down 
the  barriers  that  divide  us  and  to  enrich  our  individual 
lives  with  a  sympathetic  exchange  of  personal  thought 
and  experience.  And  this  is  the  direction  in  which  we 
have  come  along  the  path  of  social  evolution.  The  his- 
tory of  civilization  is  the  history  of  the  process  by  which 
men  have  learned  to  know  each  other.  And  in  learning 
to  know  each  other  they  have  learned  to  think  differently 
of  each  other  and  to  find  in  each  other,  not  enemies, 
but  sympathetic  and  helpful  friends.  But  this  result 
is  not  the  outcome  of  any  mere  feeling  or  hypothesis  of 
unity,  —  of  any  original  consciousness  of  kind.  Rather 
should  we  say  that  in  the  early  stages  of  culture  such 
unity  was,  in  the  larger  sense,  as  between  tribe  and  tribe, 
neither  discoverable  nor  real.  For  where  two  tribes  find 
themselves  in  a  region  which,  in  the  existent  state  of 
knowledge,  will  not  support  more  than  one,  the  unity 
of  interests  must  be  regarded  as  altogether  meaningless. 
The  progress  toward  real  unity  has  come  about  through 
what  we  should  now  call  a  scientific  study  of  facts  and 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  207 

conditions.  The  development  of  agriculture  and  the 
mechanical  arts,  and  the  application  of  the  latter  to  the 
purposes  of  communication,  has  made  the  world  larger 
as  a  source  of  supply,  smaller  as  a  barrier  to  social  inter- 
course. Literature  and  the  fine  arts  have  brought  men 
on  their  finer  and  more  personal  side  into  sympathetic 
relations  with  their  otherwise  remote  and  distant  neigh- 
bors. And  the  study  of  law,  of  ethics,  of  economic  and 
social  conditions,  has  enabled  men  to  live  together  in 
large  cooperative  bodies.  In  a  word,  then,  it  is  through 
the  scientific  study  of  actual  conditions  that  the  narrow- 
ness of  the  individual  in  the  world  at  large  has  been  over- 
come and  his  sympathies  enlarged,  and  it  is  through 
this  that  the  life  of  the  race  has  become,  so  far  as  it  has 
become  so,  a  positive  and  real  unity. 

§  113.  This  scientific  organization  of  society  is  justice. 
And  this  will  explain  how  justice  is  love  become  real. 
As  long  as  physical  conditions  present  a  flat  contradic- 
tion between  the  interests  of  nation  and  nation,  capital 
and  labor,  producer  and  consumer,  it  is  nonsense  to 
speak  of  love  except  as  a  practical  problem.  Love  is 
the  conscious  realization  of  adjustments  made.  This  is 
what  it  must  mean  in  the  larger  relations  of  life;  it 
is  what  it  does  mean  in  the  more  intimate  relations  so  far 
as  love  is  real.  Mr.  Hardy  has  expressed  the  idea  very 
beautifully  in  his  "Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd." 
You  have  no  doubt  read  of  that  prosaic  courtship  of 
Bathsheba  Everdene  by  Gabriel  Oak,  her  longtime 
steward  and  man  of  business. 

"Theirs  was  that  substantial  affection  which  arises,  if  any 
arises  at  all,  when  the  two  who  are  thrown  together  begin  first 
by  knowing  the  rougher  sides  of  each  other's  character,  and  not 
the  best  till  further  on ;  the  romance  growing  up  in  the  interstices 
of  a  mass  of  hard  prosaic  reality.  This  good  fellowship,  camara- 


208  Individuality  and  Unity 

derie,  usually  occurring  through  similarity  of  pursuits,  is  unfortu- 
nately seldom  superadded  to  love  between  the  sexes,  because  men 
and  women  associate  not  in  their  labors  but  in  their  pleasures 
merely.  Where,  however,  happy  circumstances  permit  its  devel- 
opment, the  compounded  feeling  proves  itself  to  be  the  only  love 
which  is  strong  as  death;  the  love  which  many  waters  cannot 
quench,  nor  the  floods  drown;  beside  which  the  passion  usually 
called  by  the  name  is  as  evanescent  as  steam." 

And  why  evanescent?  Because  the  feeling  has  no  posi- 
tive content.  There  is,  so  to  speak,  nothing  to  love 
about;  no  concrete  organization  of  the  married  life. 
And  this,  I  think,  should  be  a  matter  of  thought  for 
those  who,  at  the  close  of  courtship  and  honeymoon, 
find  that  sentiment  begins  to  pall.  For  even  here,  in  its 
most  typical  expression,  love  is  a  problem  to  be  solved. 
The  marriage  ceremony  is  mostly  a  contract  for  future 
delivery,  a  mutual  promise  to  pay,  which  is  to  be  justi- 
fied by  the  sympathies  effected  through  the  concrete 
issues  of  associated  life. 

For  the  Christian  conception  of  love  these  adjustments 
are  irrelevant,  either  as  basis  or  conclusion.  "Love 
your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you."  And  though 
your  enemy  has  attacked  you,  not  seven  times,  but 
seventy  times  seven,  overlook  it.  But  facts  are  not  to 
be  overlooked.  From  any  but  a  mystical  standpoint 
the  love  that  a  man  cherishes  toward  his  enemies  is  a 
formal  illusion,  a  state  of  mind  incompatible  with  a 
clear  perception  of  the  hostile  relations.  Real  love 
implies  a  meeting  of  minds,  a  sympathetic  reciprocity 
of  regard.  If  this  condition  be  ignored  nothing  is  im- 
plied even  in  love  for  your  friends.  Yet  no  dictate  of 
justice  permits  one  to  be  unforgiving,  if  the  conditions 
of  forgiveness  are  fulfilled.  And  justice  and  love  are 
at  one  in  holding  that  a  man  should  seek  to  convert  his 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  209 

enemies  into  friends.  It  may  be  claimed  that  this  is  all 
that  the  command  to  love  our  enemies  enjoins;  and  that 
the  mystical  denial  of  any  limitations  to  love  means 
only  what  I  have  myself  asserted,  namely,  that  the  pos- 
sibilities of  harmonious  adjustment  are  theoretically 
unlimited  between  conscious  beings.  In  this  sense,  of 
course,  I -can  subscribe  to  the  Christian  doctrine;  only, 
not  on  mystical  grounds,  but  on  the  ground  of  the  prac- 
tical efficiency  of  consciousness.  But  this  interpretation 
of  Christianity  would,  I  think,  involve  a  radical  change 
in  Christian  teaching  and  a  very  different  attitude 
toward  scientific  knowledge. 

§  114.  This  brings  us  to  the  second  aspect  of  the 
contrast  between  love  and  justice,  the  contrast  between 
estheticism  and  intellectualism,  —  beauty  versus  utility, 
art  versus  science.  This  second  contrast  is  more  or  less 
a  repetition  of  the  first  with  a  change  of  terms;  the 
change  of  terms  expresses,  however,  the  view  of  the 
problem  taken  by  a  different  class  of  persons.  Under 
the  first  aspect  we  have  seen  that  there  is  no  conflict  in 
idea  between  love  and  justice  except  so  far  as  love  is  a 
mere  negation.  We  shall  see  the  same  to  be  true  under 
the  second  aspect.  The  scientific  ideal  is  not  merely 
scientific;  it  is  itself  the  expression  of  a  deeper  esthetic 
need.  And  there  is  no  conflict  between  the  esthetic  and 
the  practical  ideal  except  as  you  dwell  upon  the  intuitive, 
the  relatively  unrational  and  unconscious  aspect  of 
esthetic  appreciation,  and  make  that  the  essence  of  the 
superiority  of  beauty  to  utility. 

§  115.  What  is  the  difference  between  beauty  and 
utility?  This  is  indeed  a  large  question  to  be  introduced 
at  this  stage  of  our  discussion.  But  in  any  case  I  think 
you  will  agree  with  me  in  holding  that  beauty,  if  it  be 
true  beauty,  stands  for  a  finer  good,  and  at  the  same  time 


2IO  Individuality  and  Unity 

for  a  good  that  is  more  comprehensive  and  concrete. 
It  may  appear  at  first  somewhat  strange  to  distinguish 
beauty  as  a  concrete  good;  we  are  accustomed  rather 
to  give  this  name  to  the  utilities.  The  point  is  that  the 
beautiful  object  as  compared  with  the  useful  is  more 
completely  and  comprehensively  satisfying.  A  coat  is 
useful  in  being,  say,  durable  and  warm.  It  is  'beautiful 
if  it  fits  well  and  if  it  be  in  other  respects  just  the  coat 
that  you  ought  to  wear,  the  coat  that  precisely  expresses 
the  kind  of  man  you  are.  But,  after  all,  you  rarely  put 
much  of  yourself  into  your  coat.  As  an  expression  of 
taste  it  is  relatively  partial,  occasional,  and  unpremedi- 
tated, and  he  who  scoffs  at  it  barely  touches  you.  It  is 
another  matter  when  a  man  speaks  slightingly  of  your 
friends  or  your  special  admirations  in  art  or  letters. 
Here  he  touches  you  at  all  points  at  once.  For  these  are 
supposed  to  embody  your  most  deliberate  choice;  and 
in  standing  for  them  you  Teveal  to  the  world  what  kind 
of  man  you  are,  your  general  theory  of  life,  —  in  other 
words,  what  for  you  is  most  deeply  and  comprehensively 
satisfying.  Now  these  deeper  needs  are  the  esthetic 
needs,  and  the  objects  that  satisfy  them  are  not  merely 
good,  but  beautiful.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  I  call 
beauty  a  more  comprehensive  as  well  as  a  finer  good. 
The  useful  object  satisfies  a  special  need,  abstracted 
more  or  less  from  other  needs.  The  beautiful  is  more 
nearly  an  expression  of  the  whole  self. 

§  116.  But  there  is  another  aspect  to  the  relation. 
The  more  comprehensive  the  purpose  to  be  fulfilled,  the 
finer  the  adjustments  required,  the  further  we  shall  be 
from  stating  the  meaning  of  the  purpose,  and  the  con- 
ditions of  fulfilment,  with  analytic  precision,  —  in  other 
words,  in  scientific  form.  And  so  it  happens  that  art 
is  a  matter  of  appreciation  —  of  feeling,  or  intuition 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  211 

—  while  science  is  a  matter  of  knowledge.  Both  are 
forms  of  consciousness,  and  each  has  its  advantages 
and  disadvantages.  The  sense  of  beauty,  if  it  be  true, 
represents  a  more  concrete  grasp  of  things,  a  finer  com- 
prehension of  their  more  remote  and  subtle  differences; 
on  the  other  hand  its  results  are  correspondingly  opaque, 
as  regards  meaning,  and  incommunicable.  Scientific 
knowledge  is  readily  communicable;  if  your  scientific 
explanation  is  sufficiently  clear  you  may  even  compel 
others  to  accept  it;  on  the  other  hand,  the  clearer  it  is, 
the  more  likely  it  is  to  be  abstract.  Take,  for  example, 
the  science  of  man.  That  no  such  science  exists  is  an 
illustration  of  our  point.  The  physicist  deals  with  man, 
but  only,  say,  as  an  illustration  of  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion when  he  falls  upon  the  ice.  For  the  chemist  he  is 
a  mass  of  molecular  change ;  for  the  biologist  and  anthro- 
pologist he  is  an  organism  admirably  adapted  to  preserve 
its  kind;  for  the  economist  a  buyer  and  seller;  and  for 
the  psychologist  a  being  that  knows  what  it  is  doing. 
Each  of  these  sciences  presents  a  relatively  clear  view  of 
the  man,  yet  a  view  more  or  less  abstract,  a  certain 
aspect  of  the  man  considered  apart  from  his  other 
aspects.  Nowhere  in  science  can  you  obtain  a  view  of 
the  concrete  man,  the  personal  individual  who  is  the 
unity  of  these  several  aspects.  This  is  the  aim  of  art. 
Yet  the  object  presented  by  art  is  never  a  systematic 
unity  of  clearly  analyzed  aspects.  When  Thackeray 
introduces  you  to  Pendennis  his  chief  aim  is  to  give  you 
a  concrete  picture  of  the  man.  He  reproduces  his  con- 
versation, portrays  his  personal  appearance  and  manner, 
tells  you  of  his  career,  of  his  characteristic  vanities  and 
generous  enthusiasms,  —  all  that,  if  possible,  you  may 
enjoy  the  same  sort  of  personal  acquaintance  as  the 
author  himself.  Of  course  he  assumes  that  Pendennis 


212  Individuality  and  Unity 

is  a  consistently  personal  character.  But  he  makes  no 
attempt  at  analytic  demonstration.  This  must  be  for 
you,  as  for  him,  a  matter  of  appreciation.  Such,  then,  is 
the  peculiarity  of  esthetic  appreciation.  The  sense  of 
beauty  stands  for  both  a  finer  and  a  more  comprehensive 
grasp  of  things  and  relations  than  our  clear  perception 
of  facts.  It  is,  however,  by  comparison  a  relatively 
unconscious  process,  a  vague  and  obscure  feeling  rather 
than  definitely  self-conscious  knowledge. 

§  117.  You  will  see  the  application  of  this  to  our  social 
relations.  Those  who  have  an  eye  exclusively  to  the 
superiorities  of  feeling  and  intuition  will  claim  that  the 
finer  aspects  of  social  unity  are  not  a  matter  of  knowl- 
edge ;  that  the  feeling  of  unity  penetrates  further  than  a 
calculation  of  mutual  advantage;  and  therefore  that 
love  is  superior  to  justice.  And  to  a  certain  extent  they 
are  right.  No  human  being  can  expect  to  live  exclusively 
by  mathematical  calculation.  A  man  who  should  defer 
a  proposal  of  marriage  until  the  advantages  and  dis- 
advantages of  the  union  could  be  precisely  tabulated 
would  obviously  never  propose.  So,  again,  a  man  who 
refuses  to  do  business  except  upon  bonded  security  has 
little  business  to  do.  And  one  who  refuses  friendship 
except  upon  a  demonstration  of  advantage  has  few 
friends,  and  enjoys  few  of  the  advantages  of  friendship. 
There  is  nothing  in  our  individualism  to  warrant  such  a 
policy  in  either  field;  and  there  are  many  reasons  why 
a  man  may  more  safely  extend  his  field  of  speculation, 
and  trust  more  broadly  to  his  intuitions,  in  friendship 
than  in  business.  Our  individualism  is  not  a  set  rule 
of  life,  but,  like  every  other  really  fundamental  prin- 
ciple, a  guiding  conception,  to  be  used,  not  so  much  in 
constructing  a  plan  of  life  as  in  criticizing  the  plans 
already  there,  in  controlling  our  intuitions  as  far  as  pos- 
sible and  proving  their  validity. 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  213 

§  1 1 8.    I  hold,  therefore,  that  while  the  intuitions  of 
love  are  frequently  truer  than  the  calculations  of  justice, 
justice  is  the  test  that  shows  whether  love  is  real.     Here 
still,  we  are  dealing  with  the  principles  of  art  and  esthetic 
criticism.    We  have  seen  that  esthetic  appreciation  is  a 
relatively  unrational  and,  so  far,  unconscious  process. 
Now  there  is  a  rather  widespread  tendency  in  esthetic 
theory  to  claim  a  superiority  for  esthetic  appreciation 
upon  just  this  ground;  to  hold  that  esthetic  appreciation 
is  a  higher  form  of  spiritual  activity  just  because,  and 
just  as  far  as,  it  dispenses  with  the  forms  of  logic,  trusts 
to  pure  intuition,  and  makes  no  attempt  to  justify  its 
valuations  upon  utilitarian  ground.     This  may  go  to  the 
extent  of  holding  that  an  object  to  be  beautiful  must 
necessarily  be  useless,  and  that  the  man  who  achieves  a 
result  by  pure  intuition,  and  could  not  achieve  it  other- 
wise, is  a  finer  type  of  man  than  he  who  could  achieve 
the  same  result  by  certain  and  clear  calculation,  —  in 
other  words,  that  the  man  who  does  not  know  what  he 
is  doing  is  a  finer  type  than  he  who  does.     I  need  not  go 
into  the  motives  upon  which  this  claim  rests.     It  is  but 
one  instance  of  the  attempt  to  place  beauty  and  utility 
in  absolutely  separate  worlds,  and   thus  to  release  the 
pursuit  of  the  beautiful  from  the  control  either  of  logic 
or  of  morality,  or  of  practical  worth.     In  this  sense  it  is 
claimed  that  art  is  "free";  and  that  scientific  criticism 
of  a  work  of  art  is,  if  anything,  an  impertinence  and  a 
desecration.     For  this  view  the  criticism  of  a  work  of 
art  from  the  standpoint  of  its  utility  or  logical  consistency 
makes    absolutely  no    difference,  —  leaves    its    beauty 
untouched.     What  if  the  beauty  be  shown  to  be  a  mere 
illusion?     It  still  makes  no  difference.     If  the  object  be 
satisfying  to  the  esthetic  sense,  no  further  question  can 
be  asked.     It  may  be  practically  useless  and  logically 


214  Individuality  and  Unity 

absurd;  it  is  still  beautiful.  And  the  same  principle 
is  applied  to  brotherly  love.  If  the  feeling  of  unity  is 
satisfied,  justice  has  nothing  to  say.  The  clearer  con- 
sciousness of  the  social  relation  which  justice  implies 
makes  no  difference. 

§  119.  For  us  consciousness  always  makes  a  difference. 
The  whole  meaning  of  the  doctrine  of  these  lectures  is 
that  the  value  of  life  consists  in  its  being  self-consciously 
lived,  according  to  the  relations  which  consciousness 
reveals.  And  therefore  a  beauty  which  is  apprehended 
only  in  appreciation  is  a  value  only  partially  realized. 
And  a  value  which  upon  criticism  turns  out  to  involve 
an  illusion  is  no  value  whatever.  It  is  false  even  as 
beauty.  You  will  be  convinced  of  the  truth  of  this  if 
I  offer  a  simple  illustration.  In  the  business  part  of 
this  city  you  will  find  many  lofty  buildings  whose  walls 
of  brick  or  stone  masonry  present  a  splendid  appearance 
of  massivity  and  strength.  But  this  in  many  cases  is 
mere  appearance.  The  structural  principle  of  these 
buildings  is  steel,  and  the  stone  walls  add  no  more 
strength  to  the  buildings  than  so  much  wall-paper;  they 
do  not  even  support  themselves.  Are  you  still  impressed 
with  the  massivity  of  the  buildings  when  you  realize 
this  fact?  I  say,  when  you  realize  the  fact?  For  you 
may  still  be  cognizant  of  the  fact  in  an  abstract  sort  of 
way  which  leaves  your  impression  unimpaired.  But 
when  you  definitely  face  the  fact  as  a  fact,  when  you 
look  upon  those  walls  and  see  them  as  a  mere  veneer, 
supported  and  held  in  place,  story  by  story,  by  a  struc- 
ture of  steel,  then,  I  think,  your  impression  of  the  mas- 
sivity of  the  building  is  gone,  and  as  a  work  of  art  it  seems 
ridiculous  and  absurd.  Just  so  of  brotherly  love.  A 
love  that  is  seen  to  rest  upon  no  intelligent  sympathy,  no 
reciprocity  of  interests,  no  coordination  of  behavior,  is 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  215 

not  even  real  love.  We  honor  a  father  who  is  loyal  to 
the  end  to  a  wretched  scape-grace  of  a  son,  —  if  there 
remain  a  spark  of  filial  recognition  and  respect.  But 
take  the  case  of  Pere  Goriot,  disowned,  despised,  and 
exploited  by  his  two  heartless  daughters,  for  whom  he 
yet  passionately  yearns.  Here  the  attachment  is  a 
deplorable  weakness,  no  longer  an  intelligent  feeling, 
but  a  brute  instinct,  to  be  pitied,  but  never  to  be 
admired. 

§  1 20.  This,  however,  is  far  from  saying  that  social 
life  is  to  be  a  matter  of  mathematical  calculation  accord- 
ing to  abstract  rule,  —  that  is  to  say,  of  calculation  in 
place  of  feeling.  We  have  seen,  indeed,  that  science,  as 
distinct  from  art,  deals  with  the  abstract  aspects  of 
things.  This  is  true;  the  ideal  of  each  science  is  to 
reduce  that  aspect  of  things  implied  in  its  special  point 
of  view,  if  possible,  to  a  mathematical  formula.  And 
this  agrees  so  far  with  the  popular  notion  of  science  as 
cold-blooded,  abstract,  devoid  of  feeling,  interested  only 
in  formal  laws,  and  indifferent  to  the  warmth  and  color 
of  concrete  life.  But  all  this  is  due  to  the  necessary 
limitations  of  the  scientific  point  of  view,  of  the  point 
of  view  which  will  first  of  all  be  clear.  There  is  no  logical 
contradiction  between  wealth  of  feeling  and  clearness  of 
idea;  the  contradiction,  so  far  as  it  exists,  is  a  brute  fact, 
connected  with  the,  to  us  inexplicable,  limitations  of  our 
consciousness.  But  these  limitations  are  no  more  a  part 
of  the  scientific  ideal  than  the  vagueness  of  our  esthetic 
appreciations  is  a  part  of  our  ideal  of  beauty.  In  both 
cases  the  ideal  is  to  be  more  conscious.  And  so  we  find 
that  no  scientist  worthy  of  the  name  aims  to  stop  with 
abstract  formula.  These  are  not  constructed  merely 
to  be  put  away  upon  the  subconscious  shelf.  Their 
purpose  is  to  be  used  in  re-thinking  the  concrete  facts. 


216  Individuality  and  Unity 

In  this  process  they  are  to  receive  life  and  development. 
Their  meaning  is  to  be  realized,  —  made  real  for  feeling 
as  an  immediate  conscious  fact.  And  in  the  same  process 
the  visible  world  is  to  be  rationalized,  —  or,  in  other 
words,  made  luminous  as  the  realization  of  an  idea. 
When  you  grasp  the  point  of  this  you  will  understand 
how  it  is  that  science  has  its  own  esthetic  delights.  The 
scientific  man  sees  in  nature  ever  new  developments  of 
fundamental  ideas,  through  which  the  ideas  themselves 
acquire  a  greater  significance  and  life;  and  his  whole  aim 
is  to  realize  in  nature  a  system  of  living  truth.  And  thus, 
in  their  upward  movement,  the  processes  of  science  and 
of  esthetic  appreciation  follow  converging  lines,  and  the 
ideal  would  be  found  where  they  meet,  —  that  is  to  say, 
in  a  perfectly  conscious  process  which  both  sees  the  rela- 
tions of  things  in  transparent  clearness  of  idea  and  feels 
their  immediate  reality  as  the  finally  complete  and  con- 
crete expression  of  idea. 

It  has  been  said  of  Dante  that  he  was  as  logically  reso- 
lute as  Euclid  himself.  Perfect  art  is  always  the  per- 
fection of  logic;  a  perfect  scientific  achievement  is  the 
perfection  of  art.  Beauty  is  never  destroyed  by  analysis 
except  as  the  intelligence  which  deals  with  it  is  merely 
abstract;  otherwise  it  is  made  only  more  beautiful.  To 
me  the  beauty  of  a  building  is  enhanced  by  a  perception 
of  structural  perfection.  And  even  a  cantilever  bridge 
is  a  beautiful  object  if  only  I  can  realize,  —  not  "formu- 
late," but  grasp  in  a  single,  all-at-once,  detailed  view  the 
mutual  implications  of  its  several  parts.  And  so,  once 
more,  of  love.  Perfect  sympathy  between  perfectly 
clear-sighted  persons  is  to  my  mind  a  far  more  beautiful 
thing  to  contemplate  than  a  blind  mingling  of  self-effacing 
emotion. 

§  121.   Thus  the  aim  of  our  social  relation  is  not  a  life 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  217 

without  feeling,  nor  a  life  of  mere  feeling,  but  a  self-con- 
scious and  self -critical  realization  of  the  meaning  of  feeling 
in  perfect  clearness  of  insight  and  consequently  per- 
fect adjustment.  And  this  brings  us  again  to  the  Greek 
conception  of  justice.  For  the  Greeks,  as  we  have  seen, 
this  conception  expressed  a  social  ideal  based  first  of  all 
upon  knowledge.  But  knowledge,  as  I  have  suggested, 
was  for  them  not  the  cold-blooded  process  it  often  seems 
to  us.  And  beside  justice  and  knowledge,  as  explaining 
and  developing  them,  we  must  place  a  third  conception 
equally  expressive  of  the  Greek  mind;  that,  namely,  of 
harmony  and  proportion.  If  you  will  examine  these 
conceptions  you  will  see  that  they  are  all  the  outcome 
of  the  same  logical  motive.  What  the  Greek  sought  in 
knowledge  was  truth  in  perfect  definiteness  of  outline; 
and  there  can  be  no  definiteness  of  outline  except  as  the 
facts  and  details  are  coordinated  and  harmonized  in  a 
scientific  system.  But  what  he  sought  again  in  harmony 
was  just  this  coordination  and  adjustment  of  perfectly 
definite  differences.  For  harmony,  like  every  other 
form  of  unity,  implies  difference;  and  it  is  rich  or  poor 
according  to  the  amount  of  difference  present.  There 
is  no  harmony  in  unison.  There  is  little  in  the  mere 
blending  of  tones.  A  significant  harmony  demands  a 
complex  set  of  differences;  and  the  richest  harmony  is 
found  where  the  differences  verge  toward  discord.  And 
so  the  demand  for  knowledge,  while  on  the  one  hand 
expressing  the  needs  of  our  practical  life,  is  at  the  same 
time  the  expression  of  a  logical  and  esthetic  ideal,  which 
seeks  to  order  both  thought  and  life  with  perfect  definite- 
ness  and  proportion. 

§  122.  The  expression  of  this  ideal  in  the  social  order 
is  justice.  For  Plato  justice,  as  embodied  in  the  ideal 
state,  was  at  once  the  final  and  complete  harmony 


2l8  Individuality  and  Unity 

among  individual  natures  and  their  perfect  internal 
adjustment.  The  ideal  state  was  to  be  a  mutual  adjust- 
ment of  individual  needs  in  perfect  measure  and  propor- 
tion. It  must  be  said,  however,  that  Plato  failed  to 
grasp  the  richness  and  variety  of  the  needs  to  be  adjusted, 
—  certainly  as  these  would  be  represented  in  the  per- 
sonal aspirations  of  men  of  today.  And  therefore,  to 
grasp  the  full  significance  of  the  ideal  of  justice  we  must 
go  beyond  Plato's  presentation  and  define  our  ideal  by 
contrast,  not  only  with  him,  but  also  with  the  legal  and 
social  conventions  of  modern  times.  I  think  that  no 
one  who  gives  serious  consideration  to  the  established 
maxims  and  principles  of  the  law  can  fail  to  be  impressed 
with  the  nicety  and  justice  of  its  discriminations.  Yet 
any  student  of  law  will  admit  that  the  judgments  of 
the  courts  fall  short,  at  their  best,  of  ideal  justice.  The 
most  that  he  can  say  is  that  they  are  the  best  under  the 
conditions,  i.e.,  of  an  imperfect  grasp  of  the  complexity 
of  personal  relations.  And  therefore  the  adjustments  of 
individual  interests  effected  by  the  courts  are  neither 
artistically  beautiful  nor  scientifically  accurate.  Nicer 
and  more  discriminating  than  those  of  ruder  times,  they 
still  involve  a  large  measure  of  irrational  and  enforced 
sacrifice;  and  the  result  is  not  a  harmonious  adjustment 
in  the  true  sense,  but  an  imperfect  compromise. 

Ideal  justice  aims  at  nothing  less  than  a  perfect  and 
complete  harmony;  and  there  can  be  no  perfect  harmony 
short  of  perfect  freedom  and  self-expression  for  the  indi- 
vidual. The  conception  of  justice  implies  a  mutually 
profitable  reciprocity.  In  strict  justice  I  should  receive, 
in  terms  of  my  own  valuation,  at  least  more  than  I  give 
away,  just  as,  in  the  economic  world,  a  transaction  must 
promise  a  profit  for  both  parties,  to  be  logically  conceiv- 
able or  possible.  Apart  from  this  mutual  self-expansion 


Justice  and  Brotherly  Love  219 

justice  is  an  impotent  social  motive.  Any  problem  of 
justice  presupposes  that  between  the  conflicting  personal 
interests  there  is  some  basis  of  understanding  that  will 
leav^  each  party  both  better  pleased  with  himself  and 
better  pleased  with  his  fellow.  Of  this  problem  legal 
justice  is  never  more  than  a  partial  solution.  It  stops 
at  a  conventionally  fixed  limit  of  rights  and  obligations. 
Ideal  justice  would  consider  every  aspect  of  the  problem, 
doing  justice,  on  both  sides,  to  every  personal  motive. 
Its  solution  would  then  issue  in  the  final  removal  of 
every  maladjustment  that  stands  in  the  way  of  good 
fellowship  with  personal  freedom. 

Now  when  the  conception  of  justice  is  thus  defined  — 
and  defined,  as  I  conceive,  with  sober  logical  accuracy — it 
will  be  clear  that  justice  as  a  social  ideal  is  nothing  mean 
or  uninspiring.  On  the  contrary,  I  can  conceive  of  no 
ideal  more  worthy  of  the  position  which  we  claim  for 
ourselves  as  self-conscious  and  rational  beings.  For,  as 
I  have  pointed  out,  the  one  thing,  that  gives  value  to  our 
life,  the  one  thing  that  makes  human  life  either  noble  or 
mean,  or  makes  it  in  any  sense  a  spiritual  life,  is  the  fact 
that  it  is  consciously  lived.  And  justice  is  simply  the 
self-conscious  realization  of  the  social  possibilities  of 
conscious  beings.  If  I  have  preferred  the  language  of 
justice  to  that  of  love  it  is  because  I  wish  to  emphasize 
the  conditions  of  understanding  and  adjustment.  I 
have  no  wish  to  make  our  life  narrower  than  need  be, 
only  to  make  it  a  matter  of  intelligent  control.  If  you 
will  follow  the  conception  of  justice  to  the  point  where  it 
issues  in  the  finer  adjustments,  you  will  see,  I  think,  that 
ideal  justice  calls  for  nothing  less  than  that  perfect  sym- 
pathy and  understanding,  that  final  removal  of  barriers 
to  intercourse  between  man  and  man,  which  we  call  love. 
Only,  as  thus  conceived,  love  is  not  the  expression  of 


22O  Individuality  and  Unity 

humility  and  self-sacrifice.  It  is  rather,  for  each  of  the 
parties  concerned,  the  finally  definite  assertion  of  him- 
self and  of  his  place  in  the  social  order  of  rational 
beings. 


Self-Sacrifice  and  Merit  221 


IV  SELF-SACRIFICE  AND  MERIT 

§  123.  The  social  ideal  which  satisfies  the  demands  of 
intelligence  is  justice;  justice  is  also  beautiful;  is  it, 
however,  in  the  final  sense  moral?  To  this  question  I 
must  devote  a  brief  closing  section  of  this  lecture.  For 
I  can  imagine  a  still  unsatisfied  critic  insisting  upon  the 
following  objection:  "In  what  has  been  developed  (he 
may  say)  I  still  fail  to  discover  the  distinctive  quality  of 
virtue.  You  place  before  us  a  picture  of  a  harmony  of 
individual  interests,  expressing  the  final  development 
of  intelligence.  This  is  all  very  beautiful,  but  is  it  also 
moral?  For  what  does  it  really  amount  to?  Simply 
a  neat  arrangement  whereby  each  makes  a  profit  for 
himself  out  of  his  services  to  his  fellows.  And  since  his 
social  service  costs  him  ultimately  nothing,  in  what  sense 
is  his  conduct  meritorious?  Is  it  not  clear  that  virtue, 
which  is  value  in  its  moral  aspect,  implies  merit?  And 
can  merit  be  won  otherwise  than  through  hardship  and 
difficulty,  through  cost  and  sacrifice?  A  mutually  profit- 
able adjustment  may  be  good,  from  a  utilitarian  stand- 
point, and  from  an  esthetic  standpoint  even  beautiful; 
morally,  however,  is  it  not  poorer  than  the  meanest 
result  won  through  self-devotion  and  self-sacrifice?" 

§  1 24.  In  reply  to  these  questions  I  will  say  that,  while 
I  accept  the  quality  of  merit  as  a  criterion  of  moral  value, 
I  deny  that  merit  is  in  any  way  a  matter  of  sacrifice. 
And  first  I  wish  to  point  out  that  the  notion  of  merit  as 
won  by  sacrifice  is  the  expression  of  an  ideal  not  so  strictly 
moral  as  sentimental  and  romantic.  To  put  the  matter 
flatly,  it  is  a  feminine  ideal.  I  am,  indeed,  very  loath 
to  put  it  this  way,  because  I  believe  that  neither  intelli- 
gence nor  morality  are,  or  ought  to  be,  a  question  of  sex. 


222  Individuality  and  Unity 

But  it  is  the  best  way  of  suggesting  what  I  mean.  For 
the  region  in  which  the  criterion  of  self-sacrifice  is  most 
frequently  applied  in  common  life  is  the  measurement  of 
the  virtues  of  a  lover  or  a  husband.  The  good  husband 
of  popular  sentiment  is  estimated  less  by  the  thought- 
fulness  and  inclusiveness  with  which  he  plans  the  com- 
fort both  of  himself  and  his  wife  than  by  his  readiness 
to  sacrifice  himself.  To  the  romantic  mind  it  seems  that 
the  inclusion  of  himself  within  the  scope  of  his  thought- 
fulness  destroys  its  moral  value;  and  the  more  blindly 
he  makes  the  sacrifice  —  indeed,  the  more  unnecessarily 
—  the  more  nearly  he  approaches  the  dimensions  of  the 
chivalrous  ideal.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  casting  his  cloak 
over  the  mud  before  Elizabeth  is  a  typical  illustration. 
A  cloak,  I  imagine,  is  a  very  poor  sort  of  bridge  for  slip- 
pered feet  across  a  puddle  of  mud.  A  dry  board,  or 
something  of  the  kind,  would  be  much  more  to  the  point; 
and  its  discovery  at  the  opportune  moment  might  have 
been  a  triumph  both  of  ready  wit  and  thoughtful  kind- 
ness, —  but  from  the  standpoint  of  chivalry,  how  con- 
temptible! 

Neither  in  ethics  nor  in  economics  is  cost,  or  sacrifice,  a 
criterion  of  value.  Granting  that  my  friend  in  serving 
me  makes  a  profit  for  himself,  what  difference  does  it 
make?  As  a  rational  and  responsible  being  he  could  not 
be  expected  to  plan  otherwise.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he 
has  neglected  his  own  interests  the  value  of  the  ser- 
vice is  diminished  by  a  somewhat  unwelcome  burden  of 
obligation.  And  if  the  neglect  has  been  wilful  and  un- 
necessary, due  to  a  failure  to  consider  the  terms  of  the 
problem,  the  obligation  is  as  exasperating  as  that  of 
repaying  lost  money.  But  if  he  has  profited  why  should 
I  not  rejoice?  And  on  what  moral  ground  could  I  do 
otherwise?  Shall  we  say  that  such  rejoicing  is  the 


Self-Sacrifice  and  Merit  223 

expression  of  a  mean  and  narrow  pride  which  hesitates 
to  extend  the  right  hand  of  fellowship  in  a  relation  of 
mutual  dependence  and  obligation?  Surely  not.  If 
my  fellow  has  really  included  me  in  his  plans  —  if  he  has 
really  entered  into  my  purposes,  and  comes  to  me 
with  a  genuine,  and  no  merely  specious  "proposition  of 
mutual  advantage"  —  then,  apart  from  any  sacrifice 
whatever,  the  personal  obligation  is  established,  and  he 
merits  both  my  gratitude  and  my  consideration  in  return. 

§  125.  This,  then,  is  the  essence  of  merit:  not  sacri- 
fice, but  conscious  consideration.  The  only  man  who 
"does  things,"  to  use  a  vulgar  phrase,  is  the  man  who 
consciously  does  them.  The  man  who  does  good  to  me 
is  the  man  who  intends  my  good.  It  matters  not  that 
he  also  intends  his  own  good.  It  is  of  the  very  nature 
of  conscious  action  to  include  both,  each  as  reinforcing 
the  other.  The  demand  for  sacrifice  presupposes,  in 
fact,  a  materialistic  theory  of  desire.  If,  however,  the 
good  that  I  enjoy  is  a  good  intended  by  him,  then,  what- 
ever else  he  may  have  intended,  it  is  no  accidental  gift 
of  nature;  it  has  come  from  him;  and  he  has  won  merit, 
in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  term. 25 

§  126.  Accordingly,  a  man  acquires  merit  toward  his 
fellows  by  a  readiness  to  consider  their  interests  as  con- 

25  The  present  discussion  is  confined  to  the  ethical  field.  I  wish  to 
suggest,  however,  that  the  conception  of  merit,  as  here  outlined,  may 
be  used  to  interpret  the  cost-theories  of  economic  values.  The  cost- 
theories  represent  the  claim  made  upon  the  market  by  the  producing 
agent,  whose  merit  is  commonly  based  upon  the  conception  of  sacrifice, 
or  labor  —  or  the  pain  of  labor,  as  involving  both.  But  production  is  a 
question  neither  of  sacrifice  nor  of  labor,  but  of  creative  intelligence, 
including  of  course  its  expression  in  action.  It  is  this  that  distinguishes 
the  manufactured  product  from  the  gift  of  nature;  and  this  is  the  only 
ground  upon  which,  if  at  all,  it  could  claim  a  special  recognition  on  the 
market. 


224  Individuality  and  Unity 

nected  with  his  own.  All  such  terms  as  thoughtfulness, 
considerateness,  generosity,  broad-mindedness,  or  open- 
mindedness,  imply  an  attitude  genuinely  moral.  None 
of  them,  however,  contains  any  necessary  implication 
of  self-sacrifice.  What  is  implied  in  them  all  is  a  deter- 
mination to  think,  —  and  thus  to  cover  a  broader  field 
of  interests  than  those  of  the  immediate  present.  And 
just  this  thinking  doing  of  things  I  hold  to  be  the  essence 
of  all  virtue,  and  to  be  the  precise  point  aimed  at  in  that 
conception.  It  will  be  observed  that  I  include  doing  in 
thinking.  According  to  the  doctrine  of  these  lectures 
there  can  be,  for  a  conscious  agent,  no  divorce  between 
them.  Only,  I  exclude  self-sacrifice.  Nor,  for  a  certain 
degree  of  virtue,  is  it  necessary  that  the  interests  of 
others  find  admission  to  the  field.  For  surely  prudence  is 
a  virtue.  Under  the  absorbing  influence  of  the  "social," 
this  aspect  of  morality  has  been  well-nigh  forgotten.  Yet 
certainly  the  personally  ambitious  man,  the  man  who 
finds  it  worth  while  to  plan  and  work  for  a  career,  is, 
however  narrow  his  ambition,  a  finer  moral  type  than  the 
man  who  at  each  moment  is  absorbed  by  the  present 
enjoyment.  Here,  again,  however,  the  essence  of  his 
virtue  is  not  that  he  blindly  sacrifices  the  present  to  the 
future,  but  that  he  extends  his  imagination  beyond  what 
is  immediately  before  him  and  embraces  the  present  and 
the  future  in  an  inclusive  point  of  view.  In  this  he  fulfils 
the  distinctive  function  of  a  conscious  being.  It  is  the 
fulfilment  of  this  function  that  makes  the  animal  nobler 
than  a  machine  and  gives  a  certain  moral  quality  even 
to  the  horse  that  heeds  the  whip.  It  is  only  a  higher 
development  of  the  same  function  that  distinguishes  a 
man  from  a  beast;  and  a  still  further  development  that 
makes'him  a  member  of  a  social  order.  But  in  all  these 
gradations  of  virtue  the  essence  of  virtue  is  the  same. 


Self-Sacrifice  and  Merit  225 

Virtue  is  acquired,  and  merit  is  won,  by  the  mere  exer- 
cise of  forethought. 

§  127.  When  it  is  claimed  that  merit  involves  self- 
sacrifice  what  is  obscurely  implied  is  that  consciousness 
is  a  form  of  energy,  and  that  as  such  it  is  subject  to  the 
law  of  conservation  of  energy.  According  to  this  law 
energy  may  be  transformed,  but  never  diminished  or 
increased.  Hence,  from  the  standpoint  of  energy  alone, 
the  sum  of  reality  after  a  transaction  must  be  just  what 
it  was  before.  In  the  theory  of  self-sacrifice  the  same 
idea  is  applied  to  the  conception  of  value.  Obscurely  it 
is  implied  that  value,  like  matter  and  energy,  can  at  any 
rate  not  be  increased.  You  cannot  both  eat  your  cake 
and  have  it.  A  pleasure  bestowed  upon  your  neighbor  is 
subtracted  from  your  own  stock  of  happiness.  Assum- 
ing that  a  service  to  him  involves  attention  to  his  wel- 
fare, and  that  attention  is  an  expenditure  of  energy,  the 
energy  so  expended  must  be  so  far  a  dead  loss.  Where 
favors  are  returned  with  interest  the  expenditures  must 
be  compared  with  the  receipts;  and  if  the  transaction 
shows  a  profit  for  you,  the  net  result  of  your  service  to 
him  is  a  minus  quantity. 

Now  I  shall  not  deny  that  consciousness  is  a  form  of 
energy.  I  will  say  rather  that  if  consciousness  and 
energy  are  to  be  admitted  to  the  same  world,  this  must 
in  some  sense  be  true.  Only,  what  will  be  our  concep- 
tion of  energy  when  this  coordination  is  made,  and  what 
meaning  we  shall  then  attach  to  the  law  of  conservation 
of  energy,  is  quite  another  question,  and  a  question 
altogether  too  complicated  to  be  even  stated  in  our 
present  argument.  In  the  meantime  it  will  be  sufficient 
to  note  that,  assuming  that  the  law  of  conservation 
governs  the  sum  of  energy,  quite  another  law  governs 
the  sum  of  value.  Energy  can  be  neither  created  nor 
15 


226  Individuality  and  Unity 

destroyed;  value  may  be.  Assuming  a  given  fixed 
quantity  of  (unintelligent)  energy  in  the  world,  the 
amount  of  value  which  this  energy  represents  is  a  ques- 
tion of  its  economical  distribution;  and  this  is  a  question 
of  intelligence.  And  with  the  increase,  through  intelli- 
gence, in  the  value  of  the  sum  of  energy  there  is  at  the 
same  time  a  decrease  in  the  expenditure  of  energy 
required  for  the  attainment  of  any  given  value.  For 
an  infinite  intelligence  the  expenditure  would  be  zero; 
and  this  is  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  for  God  all 
things  are  possible,  —  under  any  conditions  whatever. 

Accordingly,  we  may  assume  that  thinking  requires 
effort  of  attention,  and  that  this  involves  a  certain 
expenditure  of  energy;  and  therefore,  perhaps,  that  a 
broader  consideration,  which  includes  my  neighbor  as 
well  as  myself,  will  involve  an  increased  expenditure.  It 
does  not  follow  from  this  that  self-sacrifice  is  the  net 
result.  And  the  absolute  sacrifice  will  be  in  inverse 
ratio  to  the  intelligence  employed.  Nor  does  it  follow 
that  the  energy  so  expended  could,  from  the  standpoint 
of  self-interest,  be  better  employed  in  the  exclusive 
consideration  of  personal  ends.  All  of  our  previous 
argument  has  served  to  show  that  the  opposite  is  true; 
and  in  the  present  argument  this  result  is  assumed,  the 
only  question  being  whether  a  net  result  of  mutual 
profit  is  compatible  with  virtue.  But  if  it  be  not  so,  the 
alternative  statement  must  be  that  virtue  is  the  correla- 
tive of  stupidity,  of  the  unintelligent  expenditure  of 
energy,  as  it  is  sometimes  claimed  to  be.  And  as  against 
this  result  I  shall  simply  repeat  that  virtue  is  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  possibilities  of  self-conscious  and  intelligent 
beings.  The  superiority  of  intelligence  means  that  it 
decreases  the  sacrifice  necessary  for  the  attainment  of 
a  given  result.  At  the  lowest  and  least  conscious  stage 


Self-Sacrifice  and  Merit  227 

of  choice  a  man  simply  foregoes  one  item  of  good  for  the 
sake  of  another;  at  a  higher  stage,  however,  he  begins 
to  consider  plans  for  retaining  both.  And  such  plans 
succeed,  even  within  the  range  of  ordinary  common 
sense.  Over  and  over  again  we  meet  with  cases  where, 
by  a  very  moderate  exercise  of  intelligence,  a  man  in- 
creases the  immediate  value  of  the  present  just  by  think- 
ing of  the  future,  or  his  own  good  by  considering  his 
neighbor.  By  his  thoughtfulness  the  element  of  sacrifice 
is  diminished.  Yet  just  so  far  is  the  element  of  virtue 
increased.  For  the  element  of  virtue  is  the  thoughtful- 
ness  itself. 

§  128.  Still  I  may  be  asked,  "What  if  all  men  were, 
in  your  sense,  perfectly  virtuous?  Suppose  that  men 
reached  such  a  stage  of  intelligence  and  mutual  under- 
standing that  all  individual  interests  were  finally  co- 
ordinated, so  that  the  consideration  of  mutual  interests 
represented  the  easiest  and  most  inevitable  expression 
of  natural  impulse.  This  would  be  beautiful,  perhaps; 
and  certainly  intelligent;  but,  once  more,  would  it  be 
moral?  Would  there  be  any  meaning  for  virtue  in  such 
a  state?"  To  this  I  should  reply  that,  provided  the 
state  of  perfection  were  a  self-conscious  state,  and  not 
merely  a  finally  complete  condition  of  unconscious, 
mechanical  coordination,  —  that  is  to  say,  if  it  were  a 
truly  social  state,  then  virtue  would  mean  all  that  it  does 
now,  and  more.  For  virtue,  as  I  may  repeat,  is  not  a 
question  of  the  difficulty  involved  in  the  coordination, 
but  of  the  extent  to  which  the  coordination  is  the  expres- 
sion of  conscious  life.  And  the  state  of  perfect  coordina- 
tion, if  conceivable  as  a  conscious  social  state,  would  be 
simply  the  final  realization  of  our  capacities  of  conscious- 
ness, the  state  in  which,  as  conscious  agents,  we  should 
be  finally  efficient  and  free. 


228  Individuality  and  Unity 

But  in  the  meantime  we  need  have  no  fear  that  the 
virtue  of  open-minded  consideration  will  become  a  cheap 
and  easy  virtue,  or  that  it  will  ever  be  lacking  in  dignity 
and  high  significance.  Open-mindedness  is  not  so  much 
a  state  as  a  practical  attitude.  And  we  are  not  by  nature 
open-minded.  By  nature,  in  the  brute  sense,  we  are 
passionate,  prejudiced,  suspicious,  small-minded,  and 
mean.  When  a  difficulty  arises  with  your  neighbor, 
Nature  says,  "  Strike  first  and  investigate  afterwards." 
When  your  butcher  overcharges  you,  Nature  suggests 
that  you  leave  the  bill  wholly  unpaid.  If  your  neighbor 
insults  you,  forget  that  he  has  any  rights  whatever.  To 
be  steadfastly  reasonable  under  provocation  (not  pa- 
tiently humble),  to  remember  your  neighbor's  interests 
when  he  has  forgotten  yours,  to  meet  injustice  with 
exact  justice,  violence  with  temperate  consideration,  — 
I  can  conceive  of  no  virtue  of  a  higher  order,  no  concep- 
tion of  morality  which  expresses  more  exactly  the  superi- 
ority of  spiritual  agents  over  brute  force. 


LECTURE  IV 

INDIVIDUAL  RIGHTS  AND  THE  SOCIAL 
PROBLEM 


LECTURE  IV 

INDIVIDUAL    RIGHTS    AND    THE    SOCIAL 
PROBLEM 

I  THE  THEORY  OF  NATURAL  RIGHTS 

From  the  psychological  aspects  of  individualism  in 
the  Second  Lecture,  and  the  ethical  aspects  in  the  Third, 
I  turn  now,  in  this  last  lecture,  to  its  political  and 
economic  aspects.  I  am  well  aware  that  in  this  field 
I  have,  from  a  professional  and  perhaps  from  a  personal 
standpoint,  little  right  to  speak.  But  on  the  other 
hand  if  one  end  of  the  social  problem  lies  in  the  special 
fields  of  politics  and  economics,  the  other  end  of  it 
lies  just  as  surely  in  the  field  of  moral  philosophy.  I 
may  therefore  undertake  to  state  the  situation  as  it 
appears  from  our  own  end  —  from  the  standpoint  of 
our  psychological  and  ethical  individualism  —  leaving 
it  to  be  understood  that  our  interpretation  will  require 
justification  in  the  other  special  fields. 

§  129.  The  special  purpose  of  this  lecture  is  to  rehabili- 
tate, on  the  basis  of  our  analysis  of  consciousness,  the 
doctrine  of  natural  rights  and  the  coordinate  doctrine 
of  the  social  contract.  I  suppose  that  no  respectable 
philosopher  now  accepts  this  theory.1  And  in  its  older 

1  Since  this  was  written  the  idea  of  the  social  contract  has  been  revived 
by  Mr.  C.  Y.  C.  Dawbarn  in  The  Social  Contract  (1910),  which  is  the 
complement  of  his  larger  volume,  Liberty  and  Progress  (1909).  His 
point  of  view  is  that  of  Bentham  rather  than  that  of  the  natural  rights 
school. 

231 


232  Individual  Rights 

and  still  common  form  it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  open  to 
serious  objections.  The  main  lines  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  view  were  indicated  in  our  last  lecture.  The 
primitive  state  of  man  was  conceived  as  a  "state  of 
nature."  In  this  idea  it  was  presupposed  that  the 
individuals  composing  the  human  race  were  at  the 
beginning  more  or  less  isolated.  At  least  there  was 
plenty  of  elbow-room  and  a  plentiful  supply  of  the 
necessities  of  life,  so  that  mutual  aid  was  not  a  crying 
necessity.  By  virtue  of  these  conditions,  then,  men 
were  created  free  and  equal.  And  as  thus  created  they 
were  invested  with  a  natural,  and  forever  inalienable, 
right  of  liberty  and  life.  These  rights  were  not  for- 
feited when,  at  a  later  period,  under  the  pressure  of 
growing  numbers,  they  organized  societies  for  mutual 
advantage.  In  the  organization  of  these  societies  there 
was  implied  a  "social  contract,"  by  the  terms  of  which 
each  individual  consented  to  a  certain  limitation  of  his 
natural  rights  in  return  for  an  equal  limitation  of 
the  rights  of  every  other.  In  the  meantime  the  rights 
whose  surrender  is  not  required  for  the  maintenance  of 
the  social  order,  and  which  are  therefore  not  covered 
by  the  social  contract,  remain  wholly  in  the  possession 
of  the  individual.  Such,  in  outline,  is  the  logic  of  the 
older  theory. 

§  130.  Now  of  course  there  is  no  historical  ground  for 
this  conception,  —  if,  indeed,  any  was  ever  seriously 
offered;  nor  is  there  any  conceivable  psychological 
ground.  Men  could  never  have  been  altogether  iso- 
lated. And  logically  or  psychologically,  the  concep- 
tion of  an  individual  before  society  —  an  individual 
having  the  distinguishing  attributes  of  a  human  indi- 
vidual—  is  quite  absurd.  Granting  that  you  are  a 
thorough  individual  in  your  tastes  and  opinions,  still 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  233 

your  point  of  view  is  related  to  those  of  your  fellows. 
It  is  not,  indeed,  the  reflection  of  theirs,  but  it  is  none 
the  less  a  response  to  theirs.  And  if  you  had  nothing 
to  which  you  could  respond,  you  could  have  nothing 
whatever  to  say  for  yourself. 

In  view  of  this  relationship  —  and  from  a  one-sided 
view  of  it  —  the  later  nineteenth  century  has  reversed 
the  eighteenth-century  view.  In  the  view  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  individual  is  the  product  of  society,  — 
by  heredity,  by  tradition,  by  education  and  training. 
And  by  the  same  logic  individual  rights  are  conferred 
by  the  social  order.  A  right,  it  is  often  said,  is  the 
correlate  of  an  actual  social  condition.  On  what 
ground  will  you  claim  a  right  which  nobody  will  recog- 
nize, and  which  without  recognition  you  cannot  enforce? 
Your  right  to  bequeath  your  property,  your  right  to 
enjoy  it  during  your  lifetime,  nay  your  right  to  live, 
are  the  outcome  of  the  state's  guarantee  of  protection. 
And  since  the  state  is  the  origin  and  foundation  of  all 
personal  rights,  it  follows  that  they  are  granted  for 
the  benefit  of  the  state.  Your  worth  to  the  state 
determines  even  your  right  to  live.  What  you  are 
worth  to  yourself  is  a  matter  of  no  consequence,  —  or 
at  least  of  not  more  consequence  than  would  be  repre- 
sented by  the  ratio  which  your  good  bears  to  the  total 
good  of  the  millions  of  your  fellow-citizens. 

§  131.  Now  in  my  last  lecture  I  undertook  to  show 
that  the  individual  is  not  the  product  of  society.  And  so 
I  will  repeat  here  that  the  individual  citizen  is  not  the 
product  of  the  state.  As  a  self-conscious  individual 
he  is  not  the  product  of  anything.  The  term  "product," 
in  the  sense  of  the  effect  of  a  cause,  applies  only  to 
mechanical  bodies,  and,  as  Professor  Royce  has  shown, 
it  is  inapplicable  to  ideas  and  purposes.  Here  the 


234  Individual  Rights 

motive  factor  is  not  a  cause  but  a  reason.  Now  the 
world  of  physical  science  is  an  expression  of  the  axiom 
that  the  effect  must  be  exactly  equivalent  to  the  cause. 
The  conservation  of  matter  and  of  energy  rest  upon 
this  axiomatic  ground.  Likewise  the  sign  of  equality 
connecting  the  two  sides  of  a  chemical  equation.  And 
when  it  is  said  that  the  individual  is  the  product  of 
society,  or  the  product  of  his  heredity  and  environment, 
it  is  upon  the  basis  of  this  physical  analogy.  The 
relation  might  be  expressed  in  a  quasi-chemical  formula, 
H  +  E  =  I,  or  perhaps,  H  +  S  =  I.  Now  this  formula 
will  perhaps  hold  good  so  far  as  the  individual  you  have 
in  mind  is  not  a  conscious  individual.  Once  assume, 
however,  that  your  individual  acts  consciously,  that  he 
not  only  acts  but  knows  that  he  acts,  and  knows  what 
he  does,  then,  I  say,  so  far  as  this  is  true,  the  mechanical 
equivalence  of  cause  and  effect  falls  at  once  to  the  ground. 
At  any  rate  the  mechanical  formula  fails  now  to  cover 
the  special  facts  of  the  case.  The  son  of  a  dissolute 
man  who  is  conscious  of  that  fact  is  so  far  freed  from 
the  operation  of  the  hereditary  tendency.  The  son  of 
a  serious  and  honorable  man  may  be  more  than  ever 
bound  by  example,  —  not  by  a  hereditary  cause,  but 
by  the  sympathetic  acceptance  and  recognition  of  a 
social  (here  a  filial)  relation.  In  either  case,  however, 
the  conscious  reaction  of  the  individual  to  his  hereditary 
tendency  is  a  new  and  unique  fact,  the  expression  of  a 
new  and  original  point  of  view  which  is  personal  and 
peculiar  to  himself.  So  of  the  individual  before  the 
law  of  the  state.  Let  him  once  become  aware  that  he  is 
a  member  of  the  body  politic,  then,  though  its  laws  may 
impose  an  ever  greater  moral  obligation,  they  will  not, 
as  causes,  determine  his  action.  His  action  will  then 
express  his  own  conception  of  value,  whatever  it  may  be, 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  235 

and  though  a  law-abiding  citizen,  he  will  be,  for  the 
state,  an  original  force  rather  than  a  subject,  or  product 
of  its  laws. 

§  132.  On  this  ground  I  stand  for  the  doctrine  of 
natural  rights.  The  doctrine  here  advanced  differs 
from  both  the  earlier  and  the  later  view.  The  later 
view  holds  that  since  the  individual  is  the  product  of 
the  social  order  his  rights  are  the  expression  of  social 
or  political  authority;  but  the  individual  is  not  the 
product  of  the  social  order.  The  earlier  view  held 
that,  since  men  were  created  free  and  equal,  the  indi- 
vidual possesses,  by  virtue  of  inheritance,  a  natural 
independence  and  equality  with  his  fellows.  But  men 
were  not  created  free  and  equal.  Nor  would  this  fact,  as 
a  mere  fact,  constitute  a  right  to  independence;  for  a 
right,  especially  a  "natural"  right,  must  rest  upon  the 
nature  of  the  man  and  not  upon  his  circumstances. 
Nor,  for  this  reason,  could  an  individual  right  be  a 
right  by  inheritance.  According  to  my  view  all  of 
these  considerations  are  irrelevant.  The  right  of  the 
individual  to  attain  his  ends  rests  not  upon  the  will  of 
society,  not  upon  inheritance,  not  upon  genealogy  or 
history  —  upon  no  external  authority  whatever;  but 
solely  and  completely  upon  the  fact  that  he  is  a  conscious 
agent  and  knows  what  he  is  doing. 

For  consider,  if  you  please,  upon  what  ground  a 
right  may  be  asserted,  by  an  individual,  by  society, 
by  a  lower  animal,  or  for  that  matter  by  an  object  of 
wood  or  stone.  Solely,  you  will  say,  upon  the  ground 
that  the  right  asserted  represents  value.  But  all  value 
is  the  creation  of  consciousness.  Take  consciousness 
cut  of  the  world,  and  with  it  you  have  removed  every 
vestige  of  value,  economic,  moral,  esthetic,  logical. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  as  I  have  argued  earlier,  all 


236  individual  Rights 

consciousness  is  consciousness  of  value.  Value  is  not 
the  correlate  of  mere  willing  or  desiring,  conceived  as 
detachable  features  of  consciousness,  but  of  conscious- 
ness as  such,  —  of  the  merest  knowing.  Conceive  a 
locomotive  just  to  know  what  it  is  doing:  it  cannot  be 
conceived  to  know  without  also  aiming  at  an  end. 
You  cannot  conceive  yourself  to  know  a  fact  and  yet 
to  remain  totally  indifferent  to  that  fact;  that  which  is 
totally  indifferent  can  never  be  an  object  for  conscious- 
ness. But  all  consciousness  is  individual.  Just  so  far 
as  it  is  conscious  it  is  the  consciousness  of  a  personal 
agent.  And  therefore,  as  I  have  now  several  times 
affirmed,  its  end  is  individual,  and  the  value  in  question 
is  individual  so  far  as  it  is  valuable.  To  me  the  con- 
ception of  a  self-conscious  agent  seeking  ends  not  his 
own  is  thoroughly  incoherent,  irrational,  and  self-con- 
tradictory. The  only  ground  upon  which  I  can  con- 
ceive him  to  act  at  all  is  that  the  ends  express  value 
for  him.  Value  exists  in  the  world  so  far  as  there  are 
individuals  who  know  what  they  are  doing,  where  they 
are,  and  what  they  stand  for;  and  "social  values,"  in 
the  sense  of  values  floating  about  loose,  related  to  no 
distinguishable  individual  agents,  or  expressing  no 
reciprocity  of  regard  between  individual  agents,  are 
to  me  altogether  meaningless.  On  this  ground,  then,  I 
stand  for  the  right  of  the  individual  conscious  agent  to 
seek  his  personal  ends,  —  on  the  ground  that  as  a  con- 
scious and  personal  agent  he  is  the  source,  the  criterion, 
and  the  creator  of  all  value,  and  thus  the  end  by  which 
all  value  is  to  be  measured,  not  only  of  material  goods, 
but  of  the  whole  fabric  of  our  institutions,  including 
the  state. 

§  133.   But  since  consciousness  is  a  matter  of  degree 
the  right  of  the  individual  to  seek  his  ends  is  also  a 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  237 

matter  of  degree.  That  is  to  say,  the  right  is  relative 
to  the  degree  of  intelligence  expressed  in  it.  I  do  not 
recognize  the  right  of  a  hungry  man  to  snatch  the  nearest 
loaf  of  bread.  For  no  right  is  implied  in  a  blind  animal 
impulse,  but  only  in  an  impulse  intelligently  directed. 
If  the  grasp  of  the  nearest  loaf  expresses  an  intelligent 
choice,  a  choice  that  considers  the  several  aspects  of 
the  situation,  that  fact  will  so  far  justify  the  right, 
though  the  loaf  be  mine.  But  in  that  case  I  presuppose 
that  the  fact  of  "mine"  has  been  given  full  weight, 
such  weight  as  I,  upon  mature  reflection,  should  wish 
it  to  have.  Consequently,  I  reject  the  formula,  "From 
every  man  according  to  his  abilities  and  to  every  man 
according  to  his  needs."  No  right  is  implied  in  a  need 
except  as  it  be  an  intelligent  need.  And  therefore  I 
also  reject  "the  right  of  every  man  to  a  living."  No 
man  has  a  right  to  live  just  because  he  is  alive  any  more 
than  a  fire  has  a  right  to  burn  because  it  is  burning.  Yet, 
in  so  far  as  living  implies  self-consciousness,  it  may  be 
said  that  every  man  has  a  right  to  some  sort  of  a  living. 
Here,  however,  his  right  rests  upon  more  than  animal 
grounds.  Yet  not  upon  "social"  grounds.  For  him  it 
is  not  a  question  of  the  meaning  of  his  life  for  others, 
but  of  its  meaning  for  himself.  And  so  far  as  he  is 
certain  of  his  meaning  he  will  be  justified  in  asserting 
his  claim  and  demanding  its  recognition  by  the  world. 
For  the  same  reason  a  man  of  high  intelligence  has  a 
right  to  a  very  complete  living.  Thus  it  may  be  said 
that  the  true  artist,  or  scholar,  or  statesman,  has  a  just 
claim  upon  society  for  recognition  and  support.  But 
any  such  claim  must  rest  upon  the  intrinsic  significance 
of  his  work,  not  upon  a  mere  preference  for  the  aca- 
demic or  political  life;  for  this  may  be  as  deficient  in 
meaning  as  the  instinct  of  hunger. 


238  Individual  Rights 

§  134.  But  now  if  the  several  individual  ends  con- 
flict, what  then?  Whose  right  is  to  take  precedence  of 
another's?  This,  indeed,  is  the  test  question  for  a 
theory  of  individual  rights,  —  not  because  the  welfare 
of  society  is  the  test  of  the  rights  of  the  individual, 
but  because  the  assertion  of  incompatible  rights  is 
a  self-contradictory,  and  hence  meaningless,  assertion. 
But  if  the  argument  of  the  previous  lectures  has  been 
successful  it  will  be  clear  to  you  that  the  ends  of 
conscious  individuals  cannot  conflict  so  far  as  they  are 
really  conscious.  For  a  conscious  activity  is,  so  far,  by 
its  very  nature  adjustable.  And  therefore  the  attitude 
which  you  adopt  in  claiming  your  rights  of  a  fellow-man 
is  very  different  from  that  adopted  toward  a  mechanical 
object,  and  different  again  in  the  degree  to  which  he  is 
different.  When  you  are  confronted  with  a  mechanical 
obstruction  you  treat  the  situation  solely  from  the 
standpoint  of  your  private  interests.  If  the  lot  upon 
which  you  are  to  build  is  encumbered  with  rock  you 
blast  it  out  and  get  rid  of  it  as  easily  as  possible.  For 
it  has  no  rights  that  you  are  bound  to  respect  and  it 
can  furnish  you  with  no  ground  for  treating  it  as  end 
in  itself.  Your  fellow-man,  as  a  self-conscious  and 
intelligent  being,  is  an  end  for  himself.  But  if  you  are 
an  intelligent  being  he  is  also  an  end  for  you.  For  not 
only  can  he  confront  you  with  effective  opposition. 
This  is  only  a  negative  consideration.  Indeed,  it  is 
almost  irrelevant.  For  conceive,  if  you  please,  of  two 
intelligent  agents  engaged,  with  perfect  mutual  intelli- 
gence, in  a  game  of  mutual  destruction,  —  is  it  not 
clear  that  the  notion  involves  an  absolute  self-contra- 
diction? The  merest  glimmer  of  the  real  situation 
must  show  that  they  are  missing  the  point.  For  the 
fact  is  that,  as  intelligent,  and  thus  self-adjustable 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  239 

and  self-governing,  agents,  each  can  furnish  the  other 
with  rational  and  profitable  grounds  for  respecting  his 
ends.  In  other  words,  your  fellow  can  recommend  his 
end  in  terms  of  yours  and  you  can  do  the  same  for  him. 
The  thing  needed  is  a  mutual  understanding.  By 
virtue  of  this  social  relation  the  conflict  of  ends  which 
would  otherwise  make  light  of  the  conception  of  indi- 
vidual rights  is  replaced,  therefore,  by  a  cooperative 
harmony  which,  so  far,  not  only  confirms  the  right  of 
each  intelligent  individual  to  seek  his  own  ends  but 
imposes  upon  each  other  intelligent  individual  the  obli- 
gation to  respect  them. 

And  so,  to  the  question,  What  if  the  rights  conflict? 
my  answer  would  be:  the  rights  of  intelligent  persons 
cannot,  so  far,  conflict.  The  unintelligent  have,  so 
far,  no  rights.  And  between  the  intelligent  and  the 
unintelligent  the  right  lies  with  the  intelligent.  Here 
there  may  be  conflict,  in  some  mechanical  sense,  but  no 
conflict  of  rights. 

§  135.  This  view  of  the  social  aspect  of  individual 
rights  is  altogether  remote  from  the  view  that  individ- 
ual rights  are  won  by  social  service,  or  constituted  by 
social  approval.  The  notion  of  service  is  one  of  those 
oriental  paradoxes  whose  chief  result  is  to  confuse  the 
issue  for  European  thought.  That  an  intelligent  activity 
must  be  serviceable,  —  so  much  is  not  only  admitted,  but 
affirmed.  But  in  a  society  of  intelligent  beings  there 
are  no  "servants."  No  self-respecting  man  conceives 
himself  to  be  under  obligation  to  pass  around  the  fruits 
of  his  intelligence  on  a  silver  plate  to  a  complaisant 
and  self-indulgent  public.  Rather  may  we  say  that  it 
is  for  them  to  help  themselves;  or,  better,  to  meet  the 
issue  which  he  raises  with  an  active,  individual,  and 
cooperative  response,  which  shall  realize  the  value  of 


240  Individual  Rights 

his  work  for  them  and  at  the  same  time  increase  its 
value  for  him.  In  a  word,  then,  the  obligation  to 
produce  results  of  value  to  others  rests  in  last  analysis 
upon  the  others  themselves.  Indeed,  from  the  very 
nature  of  value  it  can  rest  nowhere  else.  And  since,  in 
the  absence  of  their  self-assertion,  the  individual  cannot 
be  responsible  for  the  welfare  of  others  as  such,  it  follows 
that  his  rights  are  not  to  be  measured  in  terms  of  social 
service  actually  achieved.  Provided  that  he  has  justi- 
fied his  intelligence  by  a  serviceable  offer,  and  that  no 
reasonable  effort  has  been  spared  to  secure  an  intelligent 
response,  his  right  to  realize  his  own  ends  remains  unim- 
paired; and  so  far  as  he  can  realize  them  without  coopera- 
tion, or  even  in  the  face  of  opposition,  he  may  with  a 
clear  conscience  proceed  to  do  so.  For  him  it  is  a  ques- 
tion only  of  the  clearness  and  consistency  with  which 
they  are  conceived. 

§  136.  The  justification  of  an  individual  right  rests 
upon  precisely  the  same  ground  as  that  of  an  individual's 
assertion  of  a  fact.  When  Galileo  claimed  that  the 
earth  "does  move  "  his  assertion  was  not  so  true, 
indeed,  as  it  is  today;  not,  however,  because  the  truth  is 
the  assertion  of  the  many  —  semper  et  ubique  —  rather 
than  of  the  one,  but  because,  through  the  cooperative 
interpretation  of  the  intelligent  many,  new  considera- 
tions are  advanced,  and  new  aspects  of  meaning 
developed,  which  render  the  original  assertion  more 
intelligible  and  significant.  In  this  way  an  individual 
right  acquires  no  doubt  a  firmer  justification  when 
recognized  by  a  society  of  intelligent  persons,  —  because 
such  recognition  involves  a  sympathetic  interpretation 
which  develops  more  clearly  its  original  grounds.  But 
—  just  because  this  is  the  ground  of  its  justification  — 
it  is  not  for  the  individual  to  defer  to  the  authority 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  241 

of  his  fellows,  —  not  more  than  for  Galileo  to  defer 
to  the  authority  of  the  Church  or,  by  anticipation,  of 
modern  science.  For  the  claimant  to  a  right,  as  for 
Galileo,  the  sole  final  question  is  the  internal  clearness 
and  consistency  of  his  self-assertion  and  the  breadth 
of  consideration  upon  which  it  rests.  And  just  as 
Galileo's  assertion  may  be  said  to  have  imposed  an 
obligation  upon  science  rather  than  to  have  been  justi- 
fied by  its  sanction,  so,  I  may  repeat,  whenever  a  man 
of  creative  power  appears,  in  art,  in  science,  in  states- 
manship, in  industry,  the  responsibility  rests  upon  his 
fellows  of  getting  their  values  out  of  him,  while  his  right 
rests  upon  his  certain  consciousness  of  the  rationality 
of  his  aims. 

§  137.  A  theory  of  so  broad  a  scope  hardly  admits 
of  proof  in  the  stricter  sense  of  the  term,  and  I  must 
content  myself  with  a  few  illustrations.  The  first  is 
drawn  from  my  own  profession,  and  on  its  more  domestic 
side.  You  will  pardon  its  seeming  insignificance  because, 
as  I  think,  it  offers  a  crucial  instance.  For  I  suppose 
that  no  other  profession  has  been  more  imposed  upon 
by  the  idea  of  "social  service."  We  are  constantly 
invited  to  remember  that,  while  other  men  may  have 
their  own  aims  and  live  their  own  lives,  ours  is  a  "mis- 
sionary work";  that  our  obligation  to  the  student  is 
unlimited  while  his  obligation  to  us  is  negligible.  Our 
so-called  scientific  pedagogy  has  reached  the  point  where 
it  practically  releases  the  student  from  responsibility, 
moral  or  intellectual,  and  insists  upon  an  education 
which  (as  Mr.  Punch  would  say)  shall  involve  no  strain 
upon  the  mind.  Now  I  suppose  I  cannot  better  illus- 
trate my  theory  of  rights  than  by  stating  my  view  of  my 
own.  And  for  my  own  part  I  should  say  quite  frankly 
that  I  am  in  the  profession  for  what  I  can  get  out  of  it,  — 
16 


242  Individual  Rights 

for  the  same  reason  that  other  men,  including  other 
teachers,  —  other  intelligent  men,  I  am  in  logic  bound 
to  say  —  follow  their  various  vocations.  Not,  indeed, 
for  the  money  to  be  gained  from  it,  —  obviously  not 
that,  though  by  no  means  to  the  exclusion  of  that. 
But  first,  perhaps,  for  the  liberty  which  the  profession 
affords,  at  least  for  the  college  professor.  I  can  think 
of  no  other  walk  in  life  where  a  man  is  so  fully  his  own 
master  and  can  order  his  professional  work  so  completely 
to  express  his  own  taste  and  judgment.  Secondly, 
however,  —  and  not  less  —  because,  as  compared  with 
the  relation  of  teacher  and  pupil,  there  are  few  forms 
of  social  intercourse,  among  those  involved  in  the 
exercise  of  a  profession,  which  are  so  stimulating  and 
so  truly  humane.  By  the  side  of  teaching  —  any 
teaching  —  I  feel  that  buying  and  selling  is  almost  a 
brutal  occupation.  And  for  this  reason  there  are  few 
relations  in  life  where  the  mutual  advantage  is  so  com- 
plete. It  is  not  all  for  the  pupil.  At  least  I  believe 
that  no  teacher  of  philosophy  could  deny  that,  in  the 
development  of  his  ideas,  his  students  had  played  an 
important  part.  But  all  this  implies  a  mutuality  of 
intelligence;  and  a  mutuality  of  responsibility  by  which 
the  right  on  both  sides  is  justified.  It  is  no  part  of  a 
teacher's  duty,  certainly  not  of  the  college  teacher's,  to 
minister  to  his  pupil's  edification,  to  flatter  his  preju- 
dices, and  "lead  him  to  truth"  along  the  primrose  path. 
Truth  for  him  lies  not  that  way.  He  must  get  it  for 
himself  through  a  "wrestling  of  the  spirit"  with  the 
issues  placed  before  him.  And  if  he  declines  to  meet  an 
issue  once  fairly  presented  he  forfeits  his  right  to  the 
"social  service."  z 

1  Assuming,  of  course,  that  it  is  not  otherwise  justified  on  pecuniary 
grounds. 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  243 

Some  time  ago  one  of  a  class  of  sixty  students  in 
formal  logic  approached  me  with  the  complaint  that 
somehow  he  failed  to  understand  the  subject,  and  the 
polite  suggestion  that  I  should  use  some  of  my  leisure 
time  in  giving  him  private  instruction.  I  thought  I 
recognized  in  him  one  of  those  who  expect  to  enter  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  by  professing  an  interest  in  the 
subject,  but  I  was  ready  to  give  him  a  chance.  So  I 
asked  him  what  part  of  the  subject  he  had  found  par- 
ticularly difficult.  Well,  he  didn't  quite  know;  it  was 
all  very  confusing.  Had  he  read  the  several  chapters 
thus  far  covered  in  the  text-book?  Oh,  certainly; 
very  carefully.  Which  of  them  had  been  the  most 
difficult?  Again,  he  could  not  tell;  they  were  all  diffi- 
cult. I  then  instructed  him  to  go  over  the  text  from 
the  beginning,  make  a  careful  analysis  of  the  argument 
in  writing,  note  the  difficulties,  and  formulate  them  as 
far  as  possible  in  definite  questions  in  writing;  then  to 
bring  it  all  to  me.  He  went  away  sorrowful.  A  few 
days  later  I  was  notified  that  he  had  withdrawn  from  the 
class  in  logic.  But  if  he  had  come  with  the  program 
only  half  completed  I  must  have  recognized  an  almost 
indefinite  extent  of  obligation;  not  merely  because  he 
had  met  the  issue  raised  by  me,  but  because,  apart 
from  that,  he  would  have  raised  an  issue  for  me  which, 
as  one  who  claimed  to  be  a  teacher,  I  could  not  with 
self-respect  ignore.  Moreover,  it  would  also  have  been 
positively  stimulating  to  deal  with  a  man  who  could 
recognize  the  responsibility  of  stating  his  questions  in 
categorical  form.  And  it  is  easily  possible  that,  in  the 
effort  to  remove  his  difficulties,  I  should  have  discovered 
a  better  way  of  putting  things  and  thus  have  gained  some 
further  insight  into  the  principles,  of  logic.  As  it  was, 
I  was  glad  to  be  rid  of  an  unprofitable  customer, 


244  Individual  Rights 

In  my  opinion  this  illustrates  the  relation  of  rights 
and  obligations  very  exactly.  No  one  who  respects 
his  calling  as  a  teacher  can  afford  to  underestimate  his 
obligations  to  his  students.  And  to  one  who  really 
belongs  in  the  profession  a  seriously  formulated  inquiry 
presents  an  irresistible  appeal,  in  the  response  to  which 
he  gets  out  of  his  professional  work,  in  part  at  least, 
just  that  sort  of  immediate  satisfaction  for  which  he 
pursues  it  and  at  the  same  time  furthers  his  own  devel- 
opment along  the  lines  distinctively  his  own.  But  the 
rights,  the  obligations,  and  the  profits  are  all  strictly 
correlative.  From  either  side  it  will  hold  that  only  he 
has  a  claim  to  the  profits  of  the  situation  who  approaches 
it  with  an  intelligently  formulated  demand;  that  this 
in  turn  is  the  only  kind  of  demand  he  is  bound  to  respect; 
that  the  response  to  such  a  demand  will  yield  him  a 
profit,  and  that  in  its  absence  he  will  be  wasting  time  and 
effort  which  on  all  accounts  could  be  more  profitably 
expended  elsewhere. 

§  138.  I  have  introduced  this  domestic  illustration 
because  I  think  it  has  a  nice  application  to  some  of 
the  larger  social  relations,  - —  in  particular  to  the  rela- 
tion of  employer  and  employee,  or  master  and  servant, 
popularly  known  as  the  relation  of  capital  and  labor. 
Older  notions  were  apt  to  be  that  the  master  by  paying 
the  servant  had  purchased  him  body  and  soul.  At 
the  present  time  we  are  more  likely  to  hear  that  the  only 
justification  of  the  position  of  master  is  the  welfare  of 
the  servant.  Between  the  two  I  prefer  the  older  notion 
as  being,  for  its  time,  somewhat  less  erroneous.  For 
this  idea  prevailed  before  the  days  of  labor-unions, 
when,  though  there  was  more  or  less  complaint  of 
injustice  done  to  labor,  there  was  little  intelligent 
self-assertion  on  the  part  of  labor  itself.  Nor  is  this 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  245 

aspect  of  the  situation  wholly  past.  We  still  hear  a 
good  deal  of  inert  complaint,  very  often  on  the  part  of 
those  who  are  industrially  least  efficient  and  morally 
least  responsible.  And  in  all  classes  of  society  it  seems 
to  be  a  favorite  notion  that  the  employer  should  play 
the  part  of  Lord  Bountiful  to  passive  beneficiaries. 

According  to  my  view  there  is,  and  can  be,  no  obli- 
gation to  respect  the  personal  interests  of  those  who 
evade  the  responsibility  of  standing  for  themselves.  I 
believe  that  every  more  intelligent  employer,  like  every 
more  intelligent  teacher,  would  prefer,  on  all  accounts, 
to  deal  with  genuine  personalities,  —  with  freemen 
rather  than  slaves,  if  you  will  pardon  the  rhetoric. 
But  you  cannot  convert  a  slave  into  a  free  being  any 
more  than  you  can  make  a  scholar  out  of  a  dunce.  You 
may  raise  the  issue  and  present  the  invitation,  but  he 
alone  can  achieve  the  result.  It  is  therefore,  as  bearing 
upon  the  theory  of  personal  rights,  very  important  to 
note  that  such  is  precisely  the  result  that  the  labor- 
union  is  aiming  to  achieve.  The  labor-union  stands 
for  the  awakened  self-consciousness  of  the  laboring 
man.  Through  this  assertion  of  himself  he  has  acquired 
in  recent  years  a  right  to  consideration  which  he  may  be 
said  not  to  have  possessed  before.  His  self-assertion 
still  fails  to  express  the  perfection  of  intelligence.  The 
argument  of  violence,  of  enforced  uniformity  of  wages, 
of  artificial  limitation  of  output  and  restriction  of 
number  of  apprentices,  —  these  seem,  to  me  at  least, 
to  betray  a  certain  want  of  self-confidence  in  labor  as 
labor;  and  the  only  argument  that  will  finally  establish 
the  rights  of  labor  in  an  intelligent  community  is 
that  of  intelligence,  expressed,  among  other  things,  in 
efficiency.  This  need  not  close  our  eyes  to  the  claims 
already  validated.  These,  however,  include  no  right 


246  Individual  Rights 

to  play  the  part  of  master  or  to  treat  the  employers  as 
the  agents  and  servants  of  labor.  If  there  be  anything 
genuine  in  "executive  ability"  —if  it  be  not  (as  it 
often  is)  a  mere  name  for  advantage  of  position  —  then 
the  manager  is  as  ever  entitled,  not,  as  we  say,  to  his 
"share,"  but  to  his  right.  For  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  the  notion  of  shares  implies  the  distribution  among 
passive  recipients  of  a  fixed  and  unalterable  quantity, 
like  a  "wage  fund";  while  rights  represent  the  produc- 
tive activity  of  intelligent  agents,  each  of  which  by  his 
participation  increases  the  amount  of  the  product. 

Again,  we  hear  a  good  deal  of  more  or  less  futile 
denunciation  in  these  days  of  "predatory  wealth." 
Here  the  question  of  rights  is  between  the  men  of  wealth 
on  the  one  side  and  the  general  public  on  the  other. 
Now  some  of  the  wealth  so  denominated  represents  a 
clear  violation  both  of  law  and  of  common  honesty; 
some  of  it,  again,  is  the  product  of  questionable 
devices,  such  as  "trusts,"  for  controlling  the  markets; 
and  not  a  little  of  it,  especially  the  "unearned  incre- 
ment" of  land- values,  is  the  unforeseen  outcome  of 
imperfect  social  institutions.  But  in  the  popular  com- 
plaint it  is  all  indistinguishably  "predatory,"  and  the 
term  is  then  extended  to  define  the  essential  character- 
istic of  all  wealth.  It  is  regarded  as  axiomatic  that 
"no  man  can  earn  a  million  dollars,"  and  the  implica- 
tion fails  to  be  noted  that  "earning,"  in  this  sense,  is 
measured,  not  by  the  exercise  of  intelligence,  but  by 
the  expenditure  of  brute  force  and  the  accumulation  of 
sweat  on  the  brow.  However,  when  we  ask  what  is 
to  be  done  about  it,  and  more  especially  what  the  men 
of  wealth  are  to  do  about  it,  we  are  met  for  the  most 
part  with  nothing  much  more  intelligent  than  a  plan 
of  "education  for  social  service,"  This  means,  I  sup- 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  247 

pose,  that  men  of  wealth  are  to  be  trained  to  such  a 
pitch  of  altruism  that  they  will  finally  turn  over  all  their 
income  —  all  that  cannot  be  used  in  colleges  and  hos- 
pitals —  to  the  "conscience-fund  "  of  the  public  treasury. 
To  me  this  point  of  view  suggests  that  of  a  man  too 
polite  to  offer  more  than  a  gentle  protest  when  a  burglar 
carries  off  his  goods.  If  society  has  a  valid  claim  to 
this  private  wealth  why  does  it  fail  to  assert  its  claim 
through  the  regular  channels  of  law?  If  you  object 
that  the  mass  of  the  voters  are  not  yet  sufficiently  en- 
lightened to  see  the  point,  then  I  reply  that,  so  far,  their 
right  is  open  to  question.  Nor  can  you  then  formulate 
a  compelling  reason  why  the  possessor  of  an  unearned 
increment  should  part  with  his  wealth.  He  might  in- 
vest it  in  educational  and  charitable  enterprise,  and  this 
might  be  his  most  intelligent  way  of  securing  personal 
satisfaction.  It  does  not  follow  from  our  individual- 
ism that,  as  objects  of  expenditure  and  experimenta- 
tion, horses  and  automobiles  are  necessarily  more 
interesting  than  men.  But  under  the  conditions  as 
stated  —  assuming  that  the  wealth  is  simply  "unearned" 
and  not  formally  stolen  —  there  is  no  reason  why  he 
should  be  oppressed  with  an  uneasy  consciousness  of 
possessing  the  property  of  others.3  On  the  other  hand, 

3  It  does  not  follow  that,  because  the  unearned  increment  has  not 
been  earned  by  its  possessor,  it  has  been  earned  by  society.  It  may  never 
have  been  earned  at  all,  —  which  in  most  cases  is  the  fact.  For  example, 
it  is  clear  enough  that  the  great  increase  of  land- values  on  Manhattan 
Island  is  the  result  of  the  activity  of  the  whole  population  of  New  York 
City  (to  go  no  further).  Yet  hardly  a  consciously  intended  result, 
rather  a  result  never  seriously  considered  until  recent  years,  and  still 
imperfectly  appreciated  by  most  of  the  population.  Earning,  however, 
like  all  moral  conceptions,  implies  conscious  intention.  A  man  who 
searches  intelligently  for  a  lost  pocket-book  earns  his  reward.  The  man 
who  merely  stumbles  upon  it  gets  the  reward,  perhaps,  but  fails  to  earn 


248  Individual  Rights 

so  far  as  his  appropriation  were  the  expression  of  a 
superior  insight  into  the  values  of  things,  he  would 
have  a  certain  ground  for  asserting  a  positive  right. 

Here  he  is  in  the  position  of  a  teacher  reading  a  lesson 
to  his  fellows,  who  for  the  time  being  are  his  pupils,  — 
or,  in  more  classical  terms,  he  is  "putting  it  up  to 
them. "  For  a  man  who  invents  a  labor-saving  machine, 
or  an  expense-saving  method  of  distribution,  or  who 
develops  the  hitherto  unsuspected  possibilities  of  a  new 
country,  raises  an  issue  for  his  fellows  which  they  are 
in  reason  bound  to  meet;  and  in  one  direction  at  least, 
by  recognizing  in  a  general  way  his  right  to  the  profits 
of  his  idea.  Their  problem  is,  then,  through  an  improve- 
ment upon  his  idea,  to  make  it  profitable  for  themselves; 
and  at  the  same  time  to  devise  a  set  of  institutions  which 
will  put  his  intelligence  to  the  test  and  compel  him,  not 
so  much  to  part  with  his  profits,  as  to  justify  them  as 
the  fruits  of  a  really  significant  idea;  thus  defining  in 
truly  logical  fashion  the  proper  extent  of  his  right.4 

it.  The  same  test  applies  to  the  earnings  of  society.  A  nation  which 
allows  valuable  public  lands  to  pass  into  private  hands  through  lack  of 
interest  and  intelligence  should  not  complain  of  being  robbed.  And  it 
may  be  said  that  those  who  have  appreciated  the  value  of  the  lands 
have,  just  by  that  fact,  acquired  a  certain  right  to  them.  It  is  a  different 
question,  however,  when  the  situation  is  brought  to  consciousness. 
Through  its  awakened  consciousness  of  the  results  of  its  own  activity  the 
nation  earns  a  right  to  the  increment,  —  so  far,  of  course,  as  it  deter- 
mines that  these  results  shall  be  intelligently  directed.  And  whatever 
increments  have  been  neglected  in  the  past,  it  may  properly  insist  that 
future  increments  shall  be  apportioned  upon  a  different  basis. 

4  The  logic  of  the  problem  may  be  nicely  illustrated  in  the  institution 
of  patents.  It  is  commonly  asserted  that  one  of  the  chief  results  of  our 
patent  laws  at  present  is  to  enable  the  large  manufacturing  corporations 
to  buy  up  new  patents,  lay  them  on  the  shelf,  and  thus  save  themselves 
the  expense  of  installing  new  machinery.  Now  of  course  the  inventor  has 
a  right  to  the  profits  of  .his  original  idea,  and  in  a  well-ordered  society 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  249 

Now  I  am  quite  humbly  mindful  of  the  complexities 
involved  in  the  application  of  such  an  idea  to  these 
larger  social  relations.  But  I  think  that  the  size  of 
the  problem  should  not  be  allowed  to  obscure  its  logical 
form.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  may  see  the  idea  more  or 
less  consciously  at  work  in  existing  institutions.  And 
in  any  case  I  hold  that  the  question  of  the  distribution 
of  rights  is  the  same  in  the  larger  field  of  the  individual 
versus  society  as  in  a  transaction  between  man  and  man. 
§  139.  But  if  the  public  has  no  prior  claim  because 
it  is  public,  neither,  once  more,  has  the  individual  a 
prior  claim  because  he  is  "private."  I  have  spoken 

his  fellows  would  see  that  these  profits  were  secured  to  him  on  a  liberal 
basis.  Theoretically  I  would  suggest  that,  as  a  preliminary  basis,  he  is 
entitled  to  what  it  would  pay  his  fellows  to  give  him  rather  than  wait 
for  another  to  make  the  discovery,  —  that  is,  he  is  to  be  paid  according 
to  the  essential  originality  of  his  idea.  But  as  this  may  involve  some 
delicate  questions  I  will  not  press  the  point.  The  consideration  of 
importance  for  the  logic  of  rights  is  that,  if  his  fellows  assume  a  respon- 
sibility, they  have  also  rights  of  their  own,  the  first  of  which  is  to  have  the 
invention  placed  upon  the  market  at  a  price  which  permits  a  reasonably 
general  use.  It  is  not  a  question  of  the  enforcement  of  the  "common 
good."  If  the  inventor  can  do  better  without  a  patent,  let  him  try  it. 
If  no  one  can  duplicate  the  product  after  examining  it,  he  is  justified  as 
against  "society."  But  if  others  can  guess  his  secret,  his  originality  is 
not  so  great  as  it  would  seem.  And  if  he  needs  the  special  cooperation 
of  his  fellows  to  realize  the  profits  of  his  idea,  they  are  entitled  to  a  special 
profit  as  partners  in  the  enterprise.  In  his  Social  Contract,  Mr.  Daw- 
barn  goes  so  far  as  to  claim  that,  even  on  a  basis  of  laissez  faire,  the  state 
should  receive  a  percentage  of  the  royalties  of  successful  patents  at  a 
progressively  increasing  rate,  reaching  perhaps  a  maximum  of  33$  per 
cent.  In  any  case  I  wish  to  point  out  that  it  is  opposed  to  all  the  logic  of 
individualism  to  recognize  a  right  without  claiming  a  right  in  return; 
that  this  applies  as  well  to  the  others  who  constitute  the  public  as  to  the 
private  individual;  and  that  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  illogical  to  suppose 
that  individualism  stands  for  the  blind  conservation  of  existing  institu- 
tions. 


250  Individual  Rights 

of  the  supposed  right  of  every  man  to  a  living.  This 
is  the  poor  man's  claim.  The  rich  man  makes  the  same 
claim,  in  more  elegant  form,  in  "the  right  of  private 
enterprise."  The  meaning  of  this  is  that  no  group  of 
people  constituting  a  municipality  or  a  state  may  properly 
undertake  to  provide  their  own  gas,  water,  electric  light, 
or  street-railways  as  long  as  private  individuals  or 
corporations  stand  ready  to  supply  the  need  and  make 
a  profit  out  of  it.  It  should  be  said  that  the  right  of 
private  enterprise  is  rather  distinctively  American. 
It  would  hardly  occur  to  a  European,  and  especially  a 
Continental,  municipality  that  it  ought  to  pay  a  private 
individual  for  doing  what  it  could  better  do  for  itself. 
Nor  could  the  obligation  be  justified  on  principles  of 
natural  rights.  If  I  join  a  number  of  others  in  a  club 
to  buy  coal  from  the  mine,  the  local  dealer  will  no  doubt 
complain;  but  his  only  justification  would  be  that,  all 
things  considered  —  convenience  as  well  as  price  — 
we  should  act  more  intelligently  in  buying  our  coal 
from  him.  So  of  the  local  trade  in  general  as  against 
the  mail-order  house.  If  the  local  dealer  is  correct  in 
his  calculations,  he  may  justly  consider  himself  wronged 
But  on  any  other  grounds  he  has  no  rights  in  the  matter, 
for  he  is  not  the  most  intelligent  distributor. 

Hence  the  right  of  private  enterprise,  like  all  other 
rights,  is  a  question  of  intelligence.  But  not,  once  again, 
of  social  recognition.  For  there  may  very  well  be  cases 
where,  even  as  against  the  state,  the  private  entre- 
preneur can  better  fill  the  need.  And,  such  being  the 
case,  the  state  has  no  more  right  to  play  the  fool  than 
the  private  individual.  No  right  of  the  state  lies 
merely  in  its  greater  power.  Every  one  has  the  right 
to  expect  that  the  action  of  every  other  will  rest  upon 
rational  ground,  —  rational,  of  course,  from  the  stand- 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  251 

point  of  the  other  in  question.  The  individual  has  the 
right  to  claim  this  from  the  state.  If,  therefore,  it 
could  be  clearly  shown  that  the  public  management  of 
a  given  enterprise  were  less  intelligent  (all  things  con- 
sidered) than  that  of  a  private  entrepreneur  whose  offer 
had  been  declined,  the  latter  could  quite  justly  claim 
to  have  been  deprived  of  his  rights.  And  where  no 
basis  of  comparison  is  afforded  —  because  of  the  forcible 
elimination  of  private  competition,  or  the  loose  methods 
of  public  accounting,  or  the  necessarily  monopolistic 
character  of  the  undertaking  in  question  —  the  right  of 
private  enterprise  has  still  a  color  of  justification. 

§  140.  The  argument  against  the  theory  of  individual 
rights  reduces  itself  to  two  general  heads:  first,  the 
theoretical  argument  of  the  priority  of  the  state,  which 
we  have  already  considered;  secondly,  the  practical 
argument  to  the  effect  that  individualism  has  been 
tried  and  found  wanting.  But  has  individualism  really 
been  tried?  I  think  there  could  be  no  greater  error 
than  this.  If  we  ask  for  the  chief  point  of  defect  we 
shall  be  told  that  it  permits  the  formation  and  con- 
servation of  great  masses  of  irresponsible  wealth.  Yet 
if  we  examine  the  sources  of  such  wealth  we  shall  find 
that  most  of  it  is  the  outcome,  not  of  natural  right,  but 
of  artificial  privilege  illogically  granted  and  carelessly 
guarded.  First,  there  is  our  patent-system.6  To  this  I 
might  add  our  recognition  of  a  nearly  absolute  right  of 
determining  the  disposition  of  property  by  will  and 
testament;  for  which  the  theory  of  rights  furnishes 
only  a  partial  justification.  But  by  far  the  most  prolific 
source  of  irresponsible  wealth  is  the  stock-corporation, 
which  rests  upon  the  special  privilege  of  limited  indi- 
vidual liability,  and  to  which  an  unfortunate  legal 

e  See  p.  248,  note. 


252  Individual  Rights 

fiction  grants  the  rights  of  a  natural  person.  It  may 
be  easily  shown  that  this  single  privilege,  the  privilege 
of  limited  liability,  is  directly  or  indirectly  the  source 
of  most  of  our  swollen  fortunes,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  source  of  their  irresponsibility.  It  is  this  privilege 
that  renders  the  combination  of  capital  possible.  On 
the  basis  of  personal  honor  and  individual  responsibility 
it  would  be  out  of  the  question,  under  present  cultural 
conditions,  to  form  a  commercial  organization  repre- 
senting any  considerable  number  of  persons.  And  under 
conditions  which  would  permit  such  an  organization 
it  would  have  a  very  different  moral  character.  But 
when  the  organization  is  formed  it  becomes  an  instru- 
ment by  which  one  man  is  enabled  to  control  a  vast 
body  of  capital  for  personal  profit.  Probably  most  of 
the  larger  fortunes  have  been  made  with  other  persons' 
money.  Quite  apart  from  this  the  effect  of  the  corpora- 
tion is  to  release  the  individual  from  personal  respon- 
sibility. Personal  responsibility  presupposes,  we  have 
seen,  a  social,  and  at  the  same  time  a  personal,  relation. 
But  the  effect  of  the  corporation  is  to  interpose  a  barrier 
between  the  acting  individual  and  the  public  of  such  a 
character  as  to  diminish,  not  only  his  legal  responsibility, 
but  his  psychological  sense  of  responsibility,  if  not  also 
his  actual  moral  responsibility.6 
According  to  the  view  offered  here,  rights  belong 

6  Judging  from  the  state  of  the  public  mind  it  would  seem,  at  first 
glance,  to  make  no  difference  whether  we  speak  of  "The  Standard  Oil 
Company"  or  of  "John  D.  Rockefeller."  But  a  moment's  reflection 
will  show  that  the  fact  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  makes  a  vast 
difference:  first,  in  the  amount  of  Mr.  Rockefeller's  accumulations, 
present  and  past;  secondly,  in  his  relations  to  those  who  are  construc- 
tively his  customers;  and  thirdly,  perhaps,  in  his  actual  moral  obliga- 
tions to  them  and  to  the  public.  A  purchase  of  oil  from  Mr.  Rockefeller, 
citizen  and  dispenser,  would  be  a  very  different  affair. 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  253 

only  to  persons,  and  in  the  measure  of  their  personality 
and  intelligence.  In  our  Second  Lecture  we  have  con- 
sidered the  possibility  of  group-persons.  And  therefore 
I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  a  corporation  engaged 
in  commercial  enterprise  might  not  under  certain  con- 
ditions constitute  a  true  personality  with  genuine 
personal  rights.  At  present  these  conditions  are  almost 
totally  lacking.  A  person,  we  may  remember,  is 
constituted  by  the  relation  of  multiplicity  in  unity. 
An  activity  is  personal  so  far  as  each  phase  of  it  includes 
and  is  illumined  by  the  ideas  and  aims  of  every  other 
phase.  A  man  is  a  person  so  far  as  there  is  a  mutual 
understanding  between  the  various  aspects  of  himself. 
And  a  group  is  a  person  so  far  as  there  is  such  mutual 
understanding,  in  all  the  aspects  of  their  personal  lives, 
between  its  several  members.  It  is  this  relation  that 
constitutes  the  difference  between  a  person  and  a 
machine;  a  machine  is  moved  at  any  moment  solely  by 
the  present  force  and  is  illumined  by  nothing.  This, 
moreover,  is  the  relation  that  makes  a  person  a  respon- 
sible agent  capable  of  considering  the  demands  of  his 
physical  and  social  environment,  —  which,  again,  is  the 
foundation  of  his  personal  rights.  An  individual  may 
claim  the  right  to  conduct  his  business  according  to  his 
own  judgment,  just  because,  and  just  in  so  far  as,  he 
is  not  a  mere  machine  for  making  money,  but  a  human 
person,  a  father  of  family,  a  brother,  or  friend,  or  what 
not,  interested  in  various  objects  and  capable  of  under- 
standing the  various  demands  of  his  situation.  If  a 
corporation  should  fulfil  the  same  condition,  it  might 
then  —  but  not  otherwise  —  be  regarded  as  a  person, 
entitled  to  personal  rights. 

Now  it  is  quite  obvious  that  of  all  associations  of 
men  within  our  experience  the  railway  or  commercial 


254  Individual  Rights 

corporation,  as  at  present  organized,  is  the  farthest 
from  meeting  this  description.  The  corporation  repre- 
sents, not  a  concretely  personal  aim,  but  the  most 
abstract  of  all  aims,  namely,  dividends.  If  you  buy 
shares  of  stock  in  an  art  museum  or  a  symphony  orchestra 
it  is  because  you  are  interested  in  art  or  music;  and  in 
buying  shares  you  give  to  the  concrete  ends  of  the  enter- 
prise the  stamp  of  your  personal  approval.  But  you 
practically  never  buy  railroad-stock  because  you  are 
interested  in  the  problem  of  transportation.  This 
may,  indeed,  be  the  chief  interest  of  some  of  the  officers 
of  the  road.  And  the  road  itself  may  be  a  splendid 
technological  achievement.  From  an  esthetic  stand- 
point this  may  also  appeal  to  you.  But  in  the  end  the 
motives  which  chiefly  determine  the  buying  of  shares  — 
and  which  would  determine  you  or  me  —  are  the  invest- 
ment-motives, namely,  security  and  rate  of  anticipated 
dividend.  It  is  therefore  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
a  stock-corporation  in  the  commercial  world  is  a  machine 
for  grinding  out  dividends.  It  could  hardly  be  more  of 
a  machine  if  it  were  made  of  steel  or  wood.  Like 
every  other  machine  it  represents  an  abstract  motive 
forcibly  detached  from  other  motives  and  sent  out  to 
operate  alone;  and  when  once  set  in  operation  its  course 
is  fatally  determined.  It  is  true  that  intelligence  is 
required  for  its  operation;  but  this  intelligence  is  limited 
in  its  legitimate  exercise  to  the  task  of  keeping  the 
machine  in  its  predetermined  course;  it  can  never  by 
any  means  assume  to  reconstruct  the  end,  —  not  even 
to  entertain  considerations  that  would  appeal  to  every 
individual  shareholder.  In  a  word,  then,  the  corpora- 
tion is  by  its  very  nature,  as  well  as  by  the  deliberate 
intention  of  its  construction,  impersonal,  unresponsive, 
and  irresponsible. 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  255 

So  far  as  this  is  true  it  can  have  no  natural  rights,  — 
that  is  to  say,  none  of  those  rights  which  belong  by 
nature  to  intelligent  and  responsible  agents.  From 
the  standpoint  of  individualism  the  status  of  the  corpora- 
tion before  the  state  is  very  different  from  that  of  the 
individual  person.  The  latter  may  quite  properly  urge 
that  his  ends,  as  self-conscious  ends,  have  a  value  in 
themselves,  a  value  which  it  is  for  others  to  appreciate. 
And  as  an  intelligent  and  responsible  agent  he  may 
claim  to  have  a  worth  for  all  others  who  will  come  to 
terms  with  him.  The  corporation  is  an  end  only  for 
others.  In  itself  it  stands  for  no  value  whatever.  And 
when  it  appears  with  a  claim  for  personal  rights  it  has 
very  commonly  left  its  responsibility  at  home.  The 
others  for  whom  it  is  supposed  to  stand  are  by  special 
convention  excused  from  appearing.  Hence,  on  prin- 
ciples purely  individualistic,  where  the  individual  may 
expect  to  be  free,  the  corporation  should  be  strictly 
controlled.  It  may  be  compelled,  for  example,  to  sub- 
mit to  an  examination  of  its  accounts,  and  other  simi- 
lar regulations,  to  have  its  profits  limited,  its  scope 
of  operation  prescribed,  or  even  its  life  terminated,  if 
required  by  public  policy,  —  any  of  which  measures 
as  applied  to  a  private  individual  would  be  tyrannical 
and  absurd.  In  practice,  of  course;  the  imposition  of 
restrictions  would  be  to  some  degree  complicated  by  a 
consideration  of  the  rights  of  share-holders,  more  or 
less  validated  by  previous  recognition,  —  how  far  I 
cannot  undertake  to  say.  But  under  the  changing  con- 
ditions few  institutions  can  maintain  themselves  with- 
out a  constant  extension  of  privilege.  And  in  any  case 
the  point  of  the  matter  lies  in  the  presupposition  with 
which  the  consideration  of  a  claim  should  be  approached. 
In  the  case  of  an  individual  person  the  presupposition 


256  Individual  Rights 

is  in  favor  of  freedom;  in  the  case  of  the  corporation, 
for  control.7  And  in  the  shaping  of  institutions  it  is 
the  presupposition  that  counts. 

In  the  light  of  this  analysis  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
practical  argument  against  individualism  falls  to  the 
ground.  Irresponsible  wealth  is  the  outcome,  not  of 
individual  rights,  but  chiefly  of  uncontrolled  corporate 
privilege.  And  the  argument  applies,  not  to  individ- 
ualism, but  to  that  pseudo-individualism  which,  by  a 
legal  fiction,  treats  a  corporation  as  a  person.  From 
any  psychological  standpoint  this  is  the  most  violent 
of  all  fictions.  And  it  has  been  most  unfortunate  in 
confusing  the  issue  for  the  popular  mind.  For  I  have 
no  doubt  that  when  the  assertion  is  made  that  the  indi- 
vidual is  the  product  of  the  state,  it  is  commonly  with 
the  corporate  individual  chiefly  in  mind.  The  corporate 
individual  is  indeed  the  product  of  the  state,  —  created 
by  special  privilege.  The  personal  individual  is  the 
product  of  his  own  self-consciousness.  No  state  can, 
by  legislative  enactment,  create  a  Shakespeare  or  a 
Napoleon,  or  for  that  matter  you  or  me.  And  what- 
ever character  it  proposes  to  give  us,  we,  becoming 
self-conscious,  may  set  aside.  But  it  lies  fully  in  the 
power  of  the  state  to  decide  whether,  and  on  what 
terms,  a  corporation  shall  be  formed  to  run  a  railway 
from  A  to  B.  And  where  it  confers  a  special  privilege 
it  may  very  properly  exercise  a  special  control. 

§  141.  These  illustrations  will,  I  hope,  make  it  clear 
in  what  sense  I  stand  for  the  doctrine  of  "natural 
rights"  and  "the  social  contract."  As  I  have  pointed 
out  before,  the  terms  "nature"  and  "natural"  have 

7  Personally,  the  cry  of  an  individual  that  he  must  have  bread  appeals 
to  me  as  prima  facie  reasonable,  but  when  a  corporation  claims  that, 
in  any  case,  it  must  earn  dividends,  I  can  only  ask,  Why? 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  257 

two  rather  opposed  uses.  As  applied  to  man  they  may 
refer  to  what  he  was  by  original  mechanical  constitu- 
tion or  to  what  he  is  capable  of  becoming  through  culture 
and  development,  —  to  what  he  actually  is,  or  was,  or 
to  what  he  is  good  for.  No  doubt  in  a  final  philosophy 
the  two  meanings  must  be  coordinated.  But  in  the 
meantime  they  should  not  be  confused.  And  when 
Professor  Dewey  teaches  that  the  individual  is  inherently 
interested  in  the  good  of  others,  or  Rousseau  that  he 
was  created  a  free  agent,  the  first  meaning  of  nature  is 
predominant.  And  this  is  also,  in  part,  the  meaning 
of  Aristotle  when  he  says  that  man  is  by  nature  a  social 
animal;  he  is  social  because  of  his  mechanical  constitu- 
tion. Now,  in  this  sense,  I  hold  that,  on  the  contrary, 
man  is  "by  nature"  neither  social  nor  individual; 
that  by  nature  he  is  not  a  person,  but  only  a  savage  and 
a  brute,  and  as  such  entitled  to  no  rights  whatever. 
But  if  you  hold  with  me  that  the  most  significant  thing 
about  man  is  the  fact  that  he  is  self-conscious,  and  not 
only  acts,  as  other  things  do,  but  acts  knowingly;  and 
if  you  will  remember  that  this  fact  is  of  such  proportions 
in  the  case  of  man  as  to  overshadow  his  similarity  to 
the  rest,  not  only  of  the  physical,  but  of  the  animal 
world;  then  I  think  you  will  agree  with  me  in  saying 
that  his  true  nature  is  indicated  in  the  expression  of 
himself  as  a  conscious  and  intelligent  agent.  Only, 
then  you  will  say  that  his  nature  is  most  truly  expressed, 
not  in  the  unreflective  "innocence  and  simplicity"  of 
the  child  or  the  primitive  man,  but  in  the  most  perfect 
developments  of  culture  and  sophisticated  intelligence. 
And  it  is  in  this  sense  that  I  stand  for  the  natural  right 
of  the  individual  to  pursue  his  personal  ends,  —  not  as 
a  right  inherited  from  an  original  endowment,  but  as  a 
right  won  by  the  development  of  creative  intelligence. 


258  Individual  Rights 

And  in  this  sense,  however  transformed,  I  think  I  am 
true  to  the  underlying  motive  of  the  doctrine  of  natu- 
ral rights.  For  the  meaning  of  this  doctrine,  though 
doubtful  on  the  positive  side,  was  clear  on  the  negative. 
It  affirmed  that  at  any  rate  the  rights  of  the  individual 
were  not  conferred  by  the  state,  not  by  an  external 
agency.  And  this  I  also  affirm.  The  right  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  pursue  his  own  ends  is  the  creation  of  his 
own  intelligence.  And  in  this  sense  it  is  determined  by 
the  nature  of  the  man. 

§  142.  And  so  of  the  "social  contract."  This  con- 
ception has  created  a  vast  amount  of  contemptuous 
amusement  among  latter-day  political  philosophers. 
Yet  I  think  there  is  none  other  that  so  truly  expresses 
the  nature  of  our  social  obligations.  As  a  historical 
explanation  of  the  formation  of  society  it  is  absurd 
enough.  As  such  it  has  probably  never  been  seriously 
advanced.  But  as  the  expression  of  the  meaning  of 
any  recognized  social  order  it  seems  to  me  admirably 
accurate  and  just.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that 
social  order  is  a  question  of  meaning.  As  I  have  pointed 
out,  the  distinctively  social  relation  is  a  conscious 
relation,  a  relation  of  mutual  understanding.  It  is 
not  constituted  by  mere  spatial  proximity.  But  this 
mutual  understanding  is  by  its  very  nature  a  contract. 
Assume  that  A  depends  upon  the  action  of  B;  that  B 
knows  this;  that  A  knows  that  B  knows  this;  that  B, 
again,  knows  that  A  knows  that  he  knows.  There  you 
have  the  essential  features  of  a  contract,  expressed  in 
law  as  the  "meeting  of  minds. "  This  meeting  of  minds 
is  the  one  fact  that  binds  men  together  into  a  state; 
for  no  far-reaching  obligation  is  involved  in  the  mere 
exercise  of  force.  And  it  may  be  said  that  as  the  citizens 
of  a  state  advance  in  intelligence  the  law  becomes  less 


Theory  of  Natural  Rights  259 

of  a  police  power  for  the  enforcement  of  order  and  ever 
more  distinctly  the  authoritative  statement  of  the  terms 
of  a  mutual  agreement.  For  this  reason  I  hold  that 
the  social  relations  of  self-conscious  beings  constitute 
in  the  most  literal  sense  a  contract.  And  it  seems  to 
me  that  there  is  moral  gain  in  recognizing  this  interpre- 
tation. As  a  motive  for  paying  one's  taxes  "the  good 
of  others"  or  "the  common  welfare"  presents,  to  me 
at  least,  a  very  opaque  and  doubtful  obligation.  But 
the  notion  of  fulfilling  contractual  obligations  which 
one  has  assumed  by  participating  in  the  benefits  of 
taxation  constitutes  for  any  honorable  and  intelligent 
man  a  very  strong  motive.  It  also  serves  the  further 
and  not  less  important  purpose  of  defining  the  extent 
of  the  obligation,  and  of  enabling  a  man,  in  declaring 
the  value  of  his  property,  to  distinguish,  by  reference 
to  the  valuations  offered  by  others  of  their  own  property, 
what  is  genuinely  and  justly  obligatory  from  what  is 
sentimental  and  quixotic. 


260  Individual  Rights 


II  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE 

The  foregoing  will  serve  as  a  convenient  general 
statement.  But  in  such  a  statement  a  number  of 
points  are  left  unavoidably  obscure,  and  I  shall  under- 
take now  to  deal  with  some  of  them,  even  at  the  cost 
of  some  repetition,  in  the  form  of  answers  to  a  chain  of 
objections,  leading  finally  to  a  further  analysis  of  the 
conception  of  intelligence. 

§  143.  The  first  question  is,  What  is  the  practical 
meaning  of  a  right  not  yet  guaranteed  by  law?  In 
what  sense  may  it  be  said  to  exist?  My  answer  will 
be  that  it  exists  already  in  so  far  as  the  right  is  intelli- 
gently conceived  by  the  individual  asserting  it.  In 
other  words,  it  exists  in  the  same  sense  that  any  true 
idea  exists  which  has  been  conceived  by  an  intelligent 
person,  and  it  has  all  the  practical  meaning  possessed 
by  any  such  true  idea.  It  is  utterly  false  to  say  that  a 
right  has  no  meaning  except  as  enforced  by  the  police. 
Such  a  position  is  self-destructive  from  its  own  "social" 
point  of  view;  for  if  the  police  power  is  the  sole  guarantee 
of  a  right,  it  is  also  the  sole  guarantee  of  an  obligation; 
and  in  that  case  the  individual  citizen  would  not  be 
morally  accountable  for  any  closer  observance  of  law 
than  the  vigilance  of  the  state  should  in  each  particular 
case  be  able  to  enforce.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  whole  question  of  rights  is,  whatever  its  other 
aspects,  a  moral  question.  The  obligation  to  obey  the 
law  rests  upon  the  intelligence  it  may  be  assumed 
to  represent.  But  this  intelligence  establishes  also  a 
moral  ground  for  demanding,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
practical  ground  for  expecting,  the  consideration  of 
an  intelligently  formulated  demand.  Thus  of  the  right 


Meaning  of  Intelligence  261 

of  women  to  vote.  If  you  ask  on  what  basis  a  woman 
may  claim  a  right  not  yet  authoritatively  recognized, 
she  may  reply,  On  the  basis  of  reason;  that  is  to  say,  on 
the  assumption  that  her  claim  is  intelligently  conceived 
and  addressed  to  intelligent  beings.  And  if  the  women 
can  show  that  the  present  agitation  is  the  expression  of 
a  genuinely  awakened  self -consciousness,  and  of  an  intelli- 
gent grasp  of  their  position  in  the  state,  with  its  cor- 
related rights  and  responsibilities  —  what  as  yet  there 
is  some  ground  to  doubt  —  then,  on  the  assumption 
that  the  men  to  whom  they  speak  are  rational  beings, 
their  claim  has  nearly  the  practical  significance  that 
it  would  have  if  already  recognized  by  law.  And  on 
any  other  assumption  it  is  useless  to  claim  anything 
whatever. 

§  144.  Does  this  involve  the  admission  that  a  right 
is  of  no  practical  significance  unless  recognized  by 
society?  By  no  means.  Remember  Galileo.  His  asser- 
tion that  the  earth  moved  was  true  for  him  before  it 
was  accepted  by  others;  and  because  it  was  so  certainly 
true  for  him  he  was  bound  to  secure  its  acceptance. 
So  of  any  right  once  clearly  conceived.  To  make  use 
of  a  different  illustration,  —  I  have  before  me  a  number 
of  boards  from  which  I  propose  to  construct  a  box. 
As  against  the  boards  I  claim  the  right  to  construct  the 
box  because  I  know  how  to  do  it;  and  my  right  is  in  no 
wise  dependent  upon  their  recognition.  If  they  were 
self-conscious  beings  and  knew  what  they  were  good  for, 
they  could  lighten  my  labor,  enlarge  my  rights  and  at 
the  same  time  realize  their  own.  In  the  meantime  the 
practical  advantage  lies  with  the  being  who  knows. 
The  same  holds  as  between  the  different  members  of 
human  society.  To  the  more  intelligent  man  the  less 
intelligent  is,  relatively  speaking,  plastic  material. 


262  Individual  Rights 

And  nothing  is  clearer  than  that,  barring  sudden  death 
or  other  accident,  the  man  who  really  knows  what  he 
wants  is  bound  to  get  it,  law  or  no  law,  recognition  or 
no  recognition;  or  rather,  if  recognition  be  absolutely 
necessary,  he  will  compel  it. 

§  145.  Here,  however,  I  have  raised  another  question. 
For  what  has  just  been  said  may  seem  to  be  an  endorse- 
ment of  just  those  classes  of  men  whose  actions  have 
cast  the  largest  doubt  upon  the  theory  of  individual 
rights,  —  for  example,  the  monopolist  (as  we  may  con- 
veniently name  him)  who  has  gained  his  millions  in 
disregard  of  law,  justice,  and  common  honesty,  and  the 
political  boss  who  has  reached  a  position  of  wealth, 
power,  and  public  trust  through  systematic  corruption. 
Are  we  to  say  that  such  men  have  a  right  to  what  they 
get  because  they  know  how  to  get  it? 

To  my  mind  this  question  is  capable  of  a  perfectly 
definite  answer,  though  not  in  terms  of  simple  Yes  or 
No.  I  must  ask  you  to  remember,  first  that  I  do  not 
uphold  a  man's  right  to  get  anything  that  he  may  want, 
but  only  what  he  wants  intelligently;  and  secondly, 
that  his  right  is  proportional  to  the  measure  of  his 
intelligence.  Now,  if  you  will  place  your  monopolist 
in  a  group  of  monopolists,  all  seeking  monopoly  by  the 
same  means  as  he,  and  if  you  place  your  unscrupulous 
politician  similarly  in  a  group  of  his  kind,  then  I  shall 
say  that,  under  these  conditions,  the  successful  player 
of  the  game,  whatever  it  may  be,  has  a  right  to  all  that 
he  gets.  And  if  you  pause  to  reflect  for  a  moment  you 
will  see  that  our  assumption  is  not  so  very  far  from  the 
actual  situation.  The  great  oil  monopoly  was  won  in  a 
game  of  monopoly,  and  in  an  economic  situation  domi- 
nated by  the  idea  of  laissez  faire.  And  with  regard  to 
the  political  illustration  it  will  be  sufficient  to  repeat, 


Meaning  of  Intelligence  263 

as  a  rough  expression  of  the  truth,  the  often  quoted 
statement  that  every  people  gets  the  government  that 
it  deserves.  This  involves,  no  doubt,  a  painful  admis- 
sion. The  common  assumption  is  that  we  Americans 
are  an  extraordinarily  intelligent  people.  But  if  we  were 
such  as  a  people,  it  is  hard  to  see  why  we  should  now  be 
so  conspicuous  among  the  great  nations  of  the  world 
for  municipal  corruption  and  mismanagement,  and  for 
national  helplessness  before  the  power  of  incorporated 
wealth.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  really  popular  mind  of 
the  country  is  still  dominated  by  the  stupid  "spoils- 
system"  point  of  view.  We  believe,  in  a  way,  that 
"public  office  is  a  public  trust,"  but  the  nicer  obliga- 
tions of  a  public  trust  are  often  very  imperfectly  com- 
prehended even  by  those  who  rank  high  for  intelligence, 
while  to  the  common  mind  it  seems  quite  natural  and 
right  that  public  trust  should  confer  a  certain  privilege 
of  private  "graft,"  at  least  to  the  extent  of  doing  favors 
for  one's  friends.  And  therefore  I  think  we  are  compelled 
to  say  that  the  right  of  the  monopolist  or  the  political 
boss  to  what  he  gets  is  still  largely  justified  by  the  state 
of  popular  intelligence.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that, 
under  the  present  conditions,  each  of  these  more  or 
less  fulfils  the  responsibilities  of  his  position.  For  ex- 
ample, to  the  broader  but  not  perfectly  discriminating 
view  of  the  political  reformer  the  typical  aldermanic 
boss  is  simply  an  enemy  of  society;  but  to  his  constituents 
he  may  be,  as  Miss  Addams  has  beautifully  shown,8 
a  large-hearted,  benevolent  man,  securing  work  for  them 
when  unemployed,  and  paying  the  lawyer,  doctor,  or 
undertaker  when  they  are  in  trouble;  and  quite  probably 
this  is  the  character  he  gives  to  himself.  In  all  this 

8  "Ethical  Survivals  in  Municipal  Corruption,"  International  Journal 
of  Ethics,  Vol.  VIII,  No.  3. 


264  Individual  Rights 

he  certainly  performs  a  social  function,  however  unin- 
telligently.  And  within  his  own  ward  he  is  probably 
entitled  to  leadership,  on  the  ground  that,  as  compared 
with  his  followers,  he  is  the  more  responsible  agent. 

But  now  if  you  ask  if  we  —  the  intelligent  persons 
who  are  here  discussing  the  question  of  natural  rights 
—  shall  recognize  the  rights  of  predatory  wealth  and 
machine  politics,  of  course  I  shall  answer,  No.  But 
this  answer  will  involve  certain  assumptions.  In  the 
first  place,  we  shall  deny  that  the  striving  for  wealth 
and  power  can  be  regarded  as  in  itself  an  intelligent 
impulse.  To  our  view  the  man  who  strives  for  wealth 
with  no  notion  of  what  to  do  with  wealth,  and  no  interest 
in  the  technology  of  the  industrial  or  distributive  process 
by  which  wealth  is  gained,  or  the  man  who  strives  for 
political  power  with  no  conception  of,  or  interest  in, 
constructive  statesmanship,  • —  such  a  man  is,  so  far, 
not  an  intelligent  agent,  but  the  victim  rather  of  a 
blind  passion  which  drives  him  he  knows  not  whither. 
Probably  few  or  none  of  those  under  consideration  realize 
the  extremity  of  the  type.  The  popular  conception  is 
probably  a  personified  abstraction,  like  the  old-time 
conception  of  the  "miser."  Still,  it  seems  possible  to 
find  men  who  are  incapable  of  any  serious  occupation 
outside  of  the  stock-market  and  whose  leisure  must  be 
devoted  to  gaming.  On  the  other  hand  some  of  those 
most  conspicuous  for  the  unscrupulous  acquisition  of 
wealth  have  shown  a  high  intelligence  in  their  disposition 
of  it.  Shall  we  not  say  that,  after  the  fact  at  least, 
they  have  so  far  justified  their  right?  Not,  however, 
because  of  the  specifically  public  character  of  their 
activities,  but  because  they  have  shown  the  essentially 
intelligent  capacity  of  realizing  the  value  of  the  oppor- 
tunities placed  in  their  hands.  In  other  words,  I  should 


Meaning  of  Intelligence  265 

place  their  right  upon  the  same  basis  as  that  of  the 
intelligent  youth  to  enter  the  state-university  as  com- 
pared with  the  absence  of  such  right  on  the  part  of  the 
unintelligent. 

But  what  of  the  seekers  after  wealth  and  power  who 
show  no  intelligence?  Of  these  we  shall  say  —  in  the 
second  place  —  that  they  shall  not  be  permitted  to 
play  their  game  of  acquisition  with  us.  Thereby, 
indeed,  we  assume  a  serious  responsibility.  For,  first, 
we  assert  our  present  ability  to  beat  them  at  their 
own  game;  and  secondly,  we  announce  our  intention  of 
bringing  about  such  a  reorganization  of  the  social  order 
that  their  game  will  be  outlawed  and  a  better  game  sub- 
stituted, in  which  those  who  win  (and  all  may  win) 
shall  be  compelled  to  prove  their  intelligence  and  at 
the  same  time  justify  our  own.  It  may  be  that  we 
are  assuming  too  much.  The  assumption  is  none  the 
less  imposed  upon  us  so  far  as  we  claim  the  rights  of 
intelligent  agents.  For  —  be  the  results  to  us  what 
they  may  —  the  only  logical  ground  upon  which  we  may 
question  a  claim  is  that  it  could  not  survive  criticism 
in  a  society  composed  of  persons  as  intelligent  as  our- 
selves; and  if  we  doubt  the  sufficiency  of  our  intelligence 
for  securing  a  reform  we  must  in  all  consistency  admit 
that  those  who  win  under  the  status  quo  do  so  by  virtue 
of  a  right  superior  to  our  own. 

§  146.  But  it  may  be  that,  in  attempting  to  remove 
an  objection,  I  have  only  raised  it  again  in  more  funda- 
mental form.  What  has  just  been  said  amounts  to 
an  identification  of  the  superior  intelligence  both  with 
superior  ability  and  with  superior  moral  worth.  The 
man  of  intelligence  is  the  serious  and  capable  man 
who  is  aiming  at  constructive  results.  Now  there  is 
undoubtedly  a  certain  tendency  among  men,  which  we 


266  Individual  Rights 

have  noted  in  another  connection,  to  regard  intelli- 
gence and  morality  as  more  or  less  at  variance.  And 
in  particular  is  it  true  that,  in  all  ages,  from  the  primitive 
beginnings  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  thought  up  to  and 
including  the  present  day,  it  has  been  the  custom  of  men 
to  attribute  the  superior  intelligence  to  those  skilled 
in  trickery  and  deceit.  By  the  same  token  honesty 
is  assumed  to  involve  a  suggestion  of  stupidity,  i.e., 
"  simplicity."  Nowhere  is  this  tendency  more  in  evi- 
dence than  in  our  own  country.  It  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say  that  our  national  habit  of  thought,  certainly  our 
national  habit  of  speech,  is  to  treat  the  whole  social 
and  economic  process  as  one  grand  game  of  poker,  in 
which  the  honors  pass  to  the  most  plausible  "bluffer" 
by  virtue  of  his  superior  cunning  and  "nerve."  And 
therefore  we  are  disposed  to  pay  high  honor  for  intelli- 
gence (though  not,  as  we  conceive,  for  virtue)  to  those 
who  attain  to  political  or  economic  success  through 
devious  methods,  —  through  secret  freight-rebates  and 
the  like,  ingenious  evasions  of  the  law,  political  deals, 
and  specious  party-platforms  designed  to  outwit  the 
voter.  To  the  popular  mind  such  activities  stand  for 
sagacity,  and  it  is  on  the  ground  of  superior  sagacity 
that  the  winners  claim  a  natural  right.  It  is  felt,  more- 
over, that  the  players  in  this  game  show  a  superior  sense 
of  the  realities,  in  comparison  with  which  the  activities 
of  constructive  thought  are  more  of  the  nature  of  a 
dream.  And  so  the  question  confronts  us:  on  what 
ground  —  by  what  final  test-  of  intelligence  —  may  we 
assert  that  the  intelligence  of  the  clever  rascal  is  intelli- 
gence of  a  low  degree? 

The  answer  to  this  question  has  been  given  by  implica- 
tion in  our  Second  Lecture,  in  which  we  formulated  a 
definition  of  consciousness  and  distinguished  the  degrees 


Meaning  of  Intelligence  267 

of  consciousness.  For  "intelligence"  is,  in  last  analysis, 
simply  a  higher  degree  of  consciousness.  No  doubt  we 
tend  to  think  of  it  as  a  sort  of  abstract  consciousness, 
a  mode  of  consciousness  devoid  of  feeling  for  concrete 
values  and  things.  But  on  the  other  hand  an  intelligence 
which  were  unaware  of  its  own  abstractness,  and  which 
mistook  its  own  abstractions  for  concrete  things,  would 
be  simply  unintelligent;  and  an  intelligence  which 
recognized  the  distinction  would  not  be  thus  narrowly 
limited.  But  in  the  higher  degree  of  consciousness 
there  is  nothing  unique,  —  no  factor  which  is  not  in 
some  measure  characteristic  of  the  lowest.  To  be 
intelligent  is  only  to  be  more  keenly  conscious.  Now, 
as  we  have  seen,  a  man  is  in  general  more  conscious  to 
the  extent  that  he  grasps  all-at-once,  in  a  systematic 
unity,  a  greater  range  of  detail  with  a  correspondingly 
finer  degree  of  discrimination.  And  the  fineness  of 
discrimination  is  strictly  correlative  to  the  compre- 
hensiveness of  what  is  embraced  in  the  unitary  point 
of  view.  And  so  our  test  of  intelligence  would  be: 
breadth  of  vision  (in  a  coherent  view),  fineness  and 
keenness  of  insight.  We  may  call  that  man  more  intel- 
ligent who  sees  farther  and  more  deeply,  and  at  the  same 
time  more  accurately. 

I  have  spoken  of  intelligence  as  creative.  Every 
higher  reach  of  intelligence  is  an  act  of  creation.  But  on 
the  other  hand  every  creative  act  is  the  expression  of  a 
higher  reach  of  intelligence,  or,  as  we  say,  of  a  new  idea. 
How  the  new  idea  comes  into  being  we  need  not  pause 
to  ask.  The  point  is  that  it  represents,  when  born, 
just  what  I  have  defined  as  a  higher  degree  of  intelligence. 
James  Watt  observing  the  tea-kettle,  Newton  observing 
the  apple  (if  we  accept  the  familiar  tales)  saw  not  only 
what  others  had  seen,  but  more.  They  surveyed  the 


268  Individual  Rights 

object  before  them  more  accurately,  analyzed  it  more 
keenly,  and  at  the  same  time  brought  it  into  systematic 
relations  both  with  a  broader  range  of  present  fact  and 
with  new  facts  which  were  the  fruit  of  their  thinking. 

Let  us  apply  our  criterion  to  the  special  matter  before 
us.  And  first  let  us  remember  that  the  question  is  not 
of  the  intelligence  of  the  successful  schemer  as  compared 
with  that  of  the  man  who  loses  at  the  same  game,  but 
of  the  former  as  compared  with  the  man  of  serious  and 
constructive  purpose.  Place,  for  example,  such  a  device 
as  the  secret  rebate  side  by  side  with  any  of  the  great 
modern  inventions,  —  the  steam-engine,  the  electric 
telegraph  and  telephone,  the  electric  light  and  motor, 
the  newspaper-press  and  the  type-setting  machine;  and 
then  think  of  these  in  all  their  present  perfection.  Or 
place  it  beside  the  commercial  competition  that  wins 
through  scientific  improvements  in  the  machinery  of 
production,  or  carefully  conceived  economies  in  handling 
the  product,  or  a  juster  and  more  comprehensive 
appreciation  of  its  uses.  In  the  light  of  this  com- 
parison rebating  almost  vanishes  as  an  intellectual 
achievement.  It  implies  no  extensive  grasp  of  the 
commercial  situation,  no  special  keenness  of  insight. 
As  a  mode  of  doing  your  neighbor  it  is  nearly  as  obvious 
as  picking  pockets.  We  speak  of  course  after  the  fact, 
yet  even  after  the  fact  the  great  inventions  I  have 
mentioned  continue  to  stand,  with  their  parallels  in  the 
economic  and  political  world,  as  the  expression  of 
ideas,  as  the  discoveries  of  men  who  were  more  per- 
fectly conscious  than  their  contemporaries  both  of  the 
realities  and  of  the  possibilities  of  the  world  before  them. 
And  by  a  similar  comparison  we  may  see,  I  think,  that 
it  is  no  sign  of  intelligence  to  twist  the  meaning  of  the 
law.  Your  small  boy  will  show  himself  a  master  of 


Meaning  of  Intelligence  269 

legal  sophistry  and  baffle  all  your  efforts  to  state  your 
instructions  unequivocally.  But  it  is  a  task  of  real 
intelligence,  involving  an  extensive  range  of  imagination 
and  a  nice  sense  of  meanings,  to  state  a  law  with  logical 
clearness  and  consistency,  or  to  derive  consistency  and 
clearness  of  intention  from  a  law  badly  stated. 

§  147.  It  may  still  be  claimed,  however,  that  as  a 
matter  of  fact  many  of  those  who  have  been  markedly 
successful  in  "predatory"  activities  have  shown  them- 
selves to  be  peculiarly  far-sighted.  If  this  is  true,  I 
reply,  then,  so  far  as  it  is  true,  they  have  justified  their 
position.  It  is  not  inconceivable,  indeed,  that  the  ver- 
dict of  history  upon  the  trust-builders  of  our  time 
may  be  that  they  have  justified  their  profits  by  demon- 
strating the  possibilities  of  economic  organization.  In 
any  case  it  should  be  remembered  that  a  far-sighted 
greed  is  very  different  in  character  from  a  blind  greed. 
(The  meaning  of  a  noun  is  never  independent  of  its 
qualifying  adjective.)  If  an  impulse  is  far-sighted,  then, 
so  far,  it  is  bound  to  reach  something  worth  while, 
both  from  the  standpoint  of  the  agent  and  of  those 
related  to  him.  And  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  nature  of 
the  original  motive  makes  no  difference  if  there  be 
intelligence  in  its  elaboration.  For  example,  it  will 
make  no  difference  whether  you  set  out  to  confirm  a 
theory  or  to  refute  it.  If  you  will  only  proceed  to  refute 
it  with  scientific  and  artistic  completeness,  you  will  find 
yourself,  in  the  very  process,  acquiring  and  appropriating 
a  view  of  your  own,  which  will  then  constitute  a  positive 
contribution  to  the  subject.  So  in  practical  life.  It 
is  possible  to  find  men  whose  intelligence  has  expanded 
through  a  persistent  study  of  the  tricks  of  the  trade  and 
who,  as  the  result  of  a  broadening  of  view,  even  along 
these  lines,  have  developed  into  something  like  con- 


276  Individual  Rights 

structive  economists.  And  men  have  graduated  from 
small  politics  into  statesmanship  through  nothing  but 
an  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  worth  for  themselves 
of  power  dishonestly  acquired. 

Breadth  of  vision,  keenness  of  insight,  —  these  qual- 
ities express  themselves  in  various  forms;  in  industry 
by  technological  excellence,  in  art  by  comprehensiveness 
and  subtlety  of  suggestion,  in  science  by  order,  pre- 
cision, and  completeness.  But  all  these  are  but  different 
ways  of  saying  that  the  activity  expresses  an  idea;  or, 
in  other  words,  that  it  is  a  thoughtfully  self-conscious 
activity.  And  in  our  estimation  of  men  and  the  rights 
that  we  are  to  accord  to  them  this  is  the  final  test.  Is 
the  life  of  the  man  a  bare  mechanical  fact  or  is  it  an 
activity  permeated  through  and  through,  and  made 
luminous,  living,  and  personal,  by  consciousness?  If 
the  latter,  it  is  in  itself  the  very  source  and  essence  of 
value,  dignity,  and  right;  and  it  remains  only  for  us 
to  enhance  its  value  by  getting  our  value  out  of  it. 

§  148.  You  will  not  have  failed  to  note  that  the 
criterion  of  intelligence  here  proposed  is  distinctly 
academic.  But  such,  indeed,  is  my  purpose,  —  to 
show  that  knowledge  and  intelligence,  in  the  sense,  if 
you  will,  of  academic  intelligence,  is  the  final  reality  of 
value,  of  morality,  of  life  itself.  And  thus  my  theory 
of  social  rights  is  in  one  respect  merely  a  re-affirmation 
of  the  ancient  theory  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  according 
to  whom  political  and  social  rights  belonged  only  to 
the  wise,  and  in  particular  to  the  philosopher  and  the 
sage.  But  where  Plato  and  Aristotle  treated  wisdom, 
and  especially  the  higher  order  of  wisdom,  as  something 
essentially  remote  from  active  life,  I  have  endeavored 
to  show  that  wisdom — self -consciousness — is  just  that 
which  transforms  any  mechanical  movement  into  real 


Meaning  of  Intelligence  271 

life.  And  therefore  I  hold  that  the  academic  con- 
ception of  intelligence,  when  clearly  stated  and  divested 
of  its  accidental  features,  is  of  universal  signifi- 
cance. And  further  that,  in  spite  of  the  apparent 
divergence,  it  expresses  the  real  intention  of  the  vulgar, 
or  popular,  notion.  Take  those  who  have  a  special 
admiration  of  political  cunning;  would  they  concede 
the  object  of  their  admiration  to  be  lacking  in  breadth 
or  depth  of  vision?  On  the  contrary  their  special 
claim  would  be  that  he  is  "far-sighted"  and  "long- 
headed"; and  the  only  matter  in  dispute  is  whether  he 
is  really  far-sighted.  Moreover  —  again  in  spite  of  an 
apparent  opposition  —  the  popular  admiration  of  the 
clever  man  is  at  bottom  a  tribute  to  his  virtue.  A 
favorite  illustration  for  contemporary  moralizing  is 
Mr.  Rockefeller.  In  reading  Miss  Tarbell's  account 
of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  in  McClure's  Magazine 
it  seemed  to  me  that,  after  each  illustration  introduced 
to  show  that  he  is  relentless  and  unscrupulous,  she 
paused  to  dwell  in  admiration  upon  his  superhuman 
intelligence.  What  is  the  logic  of  such  a  recital,  for  us, 
for  Miss  Tarbell,  or  for  the  popular  mind?  Surely  I 
think  the  question  must  immediately  arise,  however 
vaguely  formulated,  How  can  a  man  of  such  extraor- 
dinary intelligence  be  in  moral  perception  so  utterly 
obtuse?  And  is  he  obtuse?  May  there  not  be  in  his 
economic  far-sightedness  a  depth  and  range  of  moral 
vision  which  we  utterly  fail  to  suspect?  In  any  case 
he  is  either  less  intelligent  than  we  suppose  or  a  man  of 
more  serious  moral  purpose,  and  the  question  is,  Which? 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  answer  this  question.  I  shall 
say  only  that,  in  spite  of  the  traditional  attribution  of 
wisdom  to  the  serpent,  it  expresses  the  inevitable  logic 
of  the  human  mind,  the  uncultivated  or  the  cultivated, 


272  Individual  Rights 

in  the  matter  of  intelligence  and  virtue.  In  last  analysis 
the  man  who  knows  best  must  know  best  what  is 
good. 

§  149.  As  a  further  point  we  may  note  that  the 
conception  of  intelligence,  and  of  the  superior  rights  of 
intelligence,  expresses  also  what  is  at  bottom  the  inten- 
tion of  the  popular  conceptions  of  rights.  The  point  is 
illustrated  by  the  notion  of  "fair  competition."  "Fair 
competition"  is  competition  along  lines  of  technological 
excellence.  No  grown  man  would  venture  to  complain 
of  a  competitor  because  he  had  won  by  offering  better 
goods  or  goods  at  lower  prices,  —  made  possible  by  more 
economical  methods  of  manufacture  and  handling.  Nor 
could  he  offer  any  rational  ground  upon  which  the  suc- 
cessful competitor  would  be  justified  in  setting  a  volun- 
tary limit  to  his  competition, — i.e.,  to  give  the  inferior 
competitor  "a  share  of  the  trade."  I  think  it  would  be 
commonly  recognized  that  the  really  inferior  competitor 
has  no  rational  claim  to  a  share  of  the  trade.  Nor, 
under  the  conditions  as  stated,  is  it  just  to  the  purchas- 
ing public  that  he  should  have  a  share.  To  give  him  a 
share  arbitrarily  is  like  making  a  deliberately  false  move 
at  a  game  of  chess  that  your  opponent  may  win,  —  thus 
making  the  game  a  stupid  and  unprofitable  occupation 
for  all  concerned.  The  feeling  of  common  sense  is 
that  the  winner  by  technological  excellence  has  every 
right  to  win;  and  further  that  it  is  to  every  one's  inter- 
est that  he  should  be  the  winner.  The  competition  of 
which  we  hear  so  much  complaint,  and  which  has  made 
"the  competitive  system"  a  term  of  reproach,  is  not  of 
this  sort,  but  that  which  wins  through  lying  advertise- 
ments or  adulteration  of  goods,  or  which  seeks,  perhaps, 
by  sundry  political  or  corporate  devices,  to  destroy 
competition  altogether  and  to  reign  alone,  not  as  the 


Meaning  of  Intelligence  273 

technologically  most  efficient  producer  or  distributor, 
but  as  the  strongest  financial  or  political  power. 

§  150.  And  finally  we  should  note  that,  also  in  the 
more  personal  relations,  and  here  especially,  we  do  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  and  almost  as  a  matter  of  instinct, 
recognize  the  dignity  and  the  independent  rights  of 
those  who  know.  Think,  for  example,  of  your  child. 
If  you  are  a  sensible  parent  it  will  be  true  that  no  non- 
sense about  the  inborn  rights  or  the  essential  rationality 
of  children  has  prevented  you  from  dictating  what  he 
was  to  do.  But  some  day  or  other  you  discover,  to 
your  surprise  perhaps,  that  his  resentment  of  dictation 
is  no  longer  a  mere  animal  impatience  of  restraint  but  a 
more  or  less  intelligent  assertion  of  personal  responsi- 
bility. And  then  I  think  you  will  leave  him  with  the 
consciousness  of  having  offered  a  just  ground  for  offense. 
In  this  you  recognize  that  a  new  personality  has  appeared 
in  the  family,  no  longer  to  be  merely  directed,  but  more 
or  less  to  be  reasoned  with  and  consulted;  and  that  so 
far  as  he  is  really  responsible  and  knows  what  he  is 
doing  he  has  the  right  to  act  upon  his  own  responsibility. 
Or  take  your  servant.  Surely  it  would  seem  that  a 
servant  is  there  to  do  what  he  is  told  in  the  way  that 
you  prescribe.  But  not  so  a  servant  who  knows  his 
business.  And  not  merely  because  you  fear  to  lose  him, 
but  because  also,  on  moral  grounds,  you  are  compelled 
to  recognize  in  him,  as  a  responsible  person,  a  free  agent 
who  as  such  is  an  end  among  the  other  family  ends,  and 
has  the  right,  while  fulfilling  his  obligations  to  you,  to 
satisfy  his  own  sense  of  what  is  rational  and  right.9 

9  Popular  notions  of  responsibility  may  lead  us  to  forget  that  a  respon- 
sible agent  must  as  such  be  a  free  agent,  and  important  in  his  own  right. 
The  common  definition  of  a  responsible  agent  is,  one  who  may  be  relied 
upon  to  respond  in  a  given  way  to  a  given  stimulus.     But  really  the  only 
18 


274  Individual  Rights 


IH  INDIVIDUALISM  AND  SOCIALISM 

We  have  now  to  turn  our  thesis  over  and  consider  it 
briefly  as  it  appears  from  another  side,  —  after  which  I 
shall  bring  these  lectures  to  a  close  with  some  con- 
clusions regarding  the  logic  of  the  social  problem. 
Every  social  theory  which  has  deserved  the  name  of 
theory  may  be  said  to  have  been  an  attempt  to  solve 
the  problem  of  order  and  freedom,  or  at  least  to  define 
the  relation  between  these  two  necessities  of  social 
life.  Yet  at  the  same  time  nearly  all  thought  upon  the 
subject  has  rested  upon  a  presupposition  which  would 
make  the  problem  theoretically  insoluble,  —  the  assump- 
tion, namely,  of  a  fundamental  contradiction  between 
individual  freedom  and  social  order.  Consequently, 
though  many  have  thought  that  (in  a  divinely  ordered 
universe)  there  ought  to  be  no  such  contradiction,  few 
have  ventured  to  assert  that  the  contradiction  may 
actually  be  removed.  Hence,  most  schools  of  social 
theory  have  represented  a  compromise  between  these 
two  ends  and  at  the  same  time  a  preference  for  one  end 
or  the  other.  Individualism  is  the  name  applied  to 
the  theories  which  emphasize  the  demands  of  freedom; 
while  socialism,  in  its  broadest  sense,  stands  first  of  all 
for  organization  and  unity. 

§  151.   The  older  conception  of  natural  rights  was  in 

things  that  may  be  trusted  to  act  in  this  way  are  the  machines. 
When  you  entrust  your  affairs  to  a  responsible  agent  you  do  not 
expect  him  to  act  in  any  fatally  prescribed  way.  You  may  dis- 
cuss the  possibilities  with  him  and  give  him  elaborate  and  detailed 
instructions.  But  when  you  finally  commit  the  matter  to  his  respon- 
sibility what  you  expect  is,  not  a  prescribed  result,  but  simply  that  his 
action,  whatever  it  may  be,  will,  after  the  fact,  commend  itself  to  you  as 
reasonable  and  right. 


Individualism  and  Socialism  275 

this  sense  individualistic.  Its  most  significant  phrases 
were:  " laissez  faire"  and  "that  government  is  best  which 
governs  least."  The  latter  has  until  recently  been 
almost  an  axiom  for  our  American  thought,  and  the 
doctrine  has  received  its  most  thorough  application  in 
our  American  life.  Yet  the  disciples  of  the  "let  alone" 
theory  were  by  no  means  in  favor  of  anarchy.  If  you 
had  asked  an  American  of  the  old  school  how  freedom 
could  be  consistent  with  order  and  industrial  efficiency, 
I  suppose  he  would  have  replied,  with  us,  that  liberty- 
loving  people  were  as  such  intelligent  people  and  that 
intelligent  people  were,  because  they  were  intelligent, 
orderly  and  efficient.  But  the  theory  of  natural  rights 
which  he  had  adopted  never  taught  that  order  was 
something  to  be  won  by  the  exercise  of  intelligence, 
something  that  absolutely  depended  upon  the  intelli- 
gent study  of  social  relations.  Rather  was  it  something 
provided  for  from  the  beginning  by  "the  wisdom  of 
Nature."  In  other  words,  Nature  had  ordained  that 
if  each  would  attend  to  his  own  affairs  all  should  be  well 
in  the  body  politic. 

I  need  not  undertake  to  describe  in  detail  the  process 
by  which  this  view  has  been  discredited.  It  will  be 
sufficient  to  point  to  the  radical  change  in  social  con- 
ditions which  has  come  about  merely  through  the 
mechanical  inventions  of  the  last  century.  To  these, 
in  large  measure,  we  attribute  the  rapid  growth  of 
cities,  the  enlargement  of  the  scope  of  the  individual 
industrial  enterprise  and  the  extension  of  its  field  of 
distribution.  The  numerous  difficulties  presented  by 
these  changes  have  shown  quite  clearly  that  "Nature" 
will  not  take  care  of  the  body  politic.  And  so  from  a 
firm  belief  in  the  doctrine  that  the  best  government 
governs  least  we  are  coming  to  a  rather  general  feeling 


276  Individual  Rights 

that  any  government  of  the  future  must  assume  a  pretty 
wide  responsibility,  if  not  to  the  socialistic  doctrine 
that  the  best  government  governs  everything.  In  the 
United  States  the  change  of  view  has  been  slow  in  com- 
ing; but  just  now  the  air  is  full  of  plans  for  enlarging 
the  scope  of  government,  to  some  of  which  we  are  already 
committed.  But  what  is  most  interesting  from  our 
point  of  view  is  the  parallel  change  in  public  sentiment 
regarding  the  importance  of  freedom.  The  Declaration 
of  Independence  has  been  relegated  to  the  place  of  an 
interesting  historical  document.  It  has  given  place 
within  the  last  ten  years  to  manifestoes  both  imperial- 
istic and  socialistic.  And  there  have  not  been  wanting 
orators  to  tell  us  that  a  "land  of  freedom"  is  a  fool's 
paradise.  All  this  of  course  is  only  another  expression 
of  the  prevailing  exaggeration  of  the  social;  and  what  is 
implied  in  it  is  a  fundamental  contradiction  between 
social  order  and  individual  freedom. 

§  152.  According  to  the  view  of  these  lectures,  now 
many  times  repeated,  such  a  contradiction  is  by  no  means 
necessary  either  in  logic  or  in  fact.  Between  freedom 
and  order  there  is  no  contradiction  in  idea;  at  most 
a  contradiction  in  fact;  in  idea,  however,  there  is  an 
absolute  mutual  implication.  We  must  admit  that 
individual  aims,  as  at  present  formulated,  do  in  fact 
conflict;  and  perhaps  to  some  degree  this  may  ever  be 
true.  But  this  occurs  only  so  far  as  the  individuals 
in  question  are  lacking  in  self-consciousness  and  know 
not  what  they  are  doing  or  what  they  plan  to  do.  So 
far  as  they  know  anything  they  are  bound  to  know  each 
other,  and  the  necessary  result  of  this  mutual  knowing 
is  to  bring  about  a  mutual  adjustment  of  activities  — 
a  social  organization  —  whereby  each  may  gain  from 
the  other  and  at  the  same  time  open  and  pave  the  way, 


Individualism  and  Socialism  277 

each  for  the  other,  for  the  satisfaction  of  individual 
ends.  This  enlargement  of  individual  opportunity  is 
freedom.  And  the  opportunity  offered  by  social  organ- 
ization is  the  only  mode  of  arriving  at  any  considerable 
degree  of  freedom.  It  is  true  that  a  certain  degree  is 
attained  by  the  isolated  individual  through  the  mere 
control  of  nature;  but  by  far  the  richer  opportunity, 
even  of  controlling  nature,  lies  in  coming  to  terms  with 
his  fellow-men.  But  if  there  is  no  contradiction  between 
order  and  freedom  there  is  of  course  none  between  the 
theory  of  natural  rights  and  the  theory  of  socialism,  - 
if  by  socialism  we  mean  simply  that  view  which  stands 
for  a  thoroughly  comprehensive  organization  of  society. 
Rather  is  a  believer  in  natural  rights  in  logic  bound  to 
make  comprehensiveness  of  organization  his  direct  and 
constant  aim;  for  in  each  extension  of  the  social  organiza- 
tion he  will  expect  to  find  an  increased  opportunity  for 
the  satisfaction  of  his  own  ends. 

§  153.  I  hope  it  will  be  clear  that,  in  no  artificial 
or  Pickwickian  sense  of  freedom  is  this  statement 
made.  We  say  that  a  body  is  "free  to  move"  in  a 
given  direction,  or  in  any  direction,  when  no  other  body 
lies  in  its  path.  Freedom  in  this  sense  might  be  called 
mechanical  freedom.  But  you  will  see  at  once  that  the 
phrase  involves  a  contradiction  in  terms.  How  can  a 
body  be  either  "free"  or  "restrained"  which  neither 
wants  anything  nor  cares  what  happens?  The  freedom 
of  a  free  body  is  a  surviving  anthropomorphism  of  a 
supposedly  impersonal  science.  The  only  real  free- 
dom —  the  only  sense  in  which  any  one  has  ever  cared 
whether  he  was  free  or  bound  —  is  freedom  to  do  as 
you  please,  —  in  other  words,  freedom  of  choice;  and 
this,  of  course,  implies  a  being  who  chooses  and  may  be 
pleased  or  displeased.  But  freedom  in  this  sense  calls 


278  Individual  Rights 

for  a  very  different  set  of  conditions  from  those  required 
for  mere  freedom  of  movement.  Freedom  of  choice 
demands,  not  that  the  world  about  you  be  empty; 
since  in  an  empty  world  there  is  nothing  to  choose; 
but  rather  that  it  be  various  and  full.  And  the  measure 
of  such  freedom  is  that  of  the  possible  range  of  choice. 
In  a  word,  then,  where  the  freedom  of  a  merely  moving 
body  is  a  question  only  of  a  clear  field  of  movement,  the 
freedom  of  a  consciously  choosing  agent  is  a  question 
of  breadth  of  opportunity,  —  which,  as  you  will  readily 
see,  is  quite  another  story. 

I  feel  it  necessary  to  emphasize  this  distinction  because 
of  the  persistent  illusion  to  the  effect  that  the  life  of 
more  primitive  times  was  somehow  gloriously  happy  and 
free.  In  our  own  country  it  takes  the  form  of  dwelling 
regretfully  upon  the  times  of  the  pioneers.  We  obtain 
this  impression,  like  so  many  others,  by  studying  our 
pioneer  as  an  external  and  merely  mechanical  fact  and 
leaving  the  inward  and  spiritual  out  of  the  account. 
Viewed  as  a  mechanical  fact  the  pioneer  was  indeed 
free;  but  his  freedom  meant  nothing  more  than  this, 
that  no  forethought  was  necessary  to  avoid  a  collision 
with  his  neighbor.  In  every  other  respect  his  life  was 
narrowly  determined.  Not  only  his  choice  of  books, 
pictures,  and  music  —  the  constant  labor  involved  in 
securing  the  necessities  of  life  left  little  room  for  thoughts 
of  these  —  but  his  choice  of  friends,  of  wife,  of  occupa- 
tion, of  education  for  his  children,  —  for  that  matter, 
of  what  to  eat,  drink,  and  wear,  —  along  every  line  his 
life  was  rigidly  determined.  And  I  believe  that  if,  with 
our  view  of  these  conditions,  we  could  combine  a  view 
of  the  general  character  of  the  pioneer  mind,  we  should 
be  inclined  to  re-echo  Hobbes'  statement  that,  apart 
from  society,  the  life  of  man  is  "solitary,  poor,  nasty, 


Individualism  and  Socialism  279 

brutish,"  though  possibly  not  "short."  For  that  matter 
the  general  level  of  the  pioneer  life  may  well  have  been 
lower  than  that,  in  present  times,  of  the  city's  very 
poor.  For  these,  in  spite  of  the  grinding  conditions  of 
present-day  industry,  have  a  certain  choice  of  occupa- 
tion, a  certain  variety  of  companionship  and  interest. 
Their  life  can  hardly  be  so  lacking  in  stimulus  and 
opportunity  for  thought.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
the  early  life  of  the  wilderness  was  no  vacation  camping- 
trip  of  an  over-stimulated  city-man,  seeking  leisure  and 
opportunity  for  thought.  For  any  free  flight  of  the 
imagination  there  was  neither  leisure  nor  stimulus. 
It  is  true  that  a  few  men  of  genuine  intellectual  power 
rose  out  of  those  conditions;  but  we  have  only  to  re- 
member the  struggles  (e.g.,  of  Lincoln)  to  obtain  the 
rudiments  of  an  education  to  appreciate  how  far  the 
conditions  were  in  general  those  of  spiritual  bondage. 

The  freedom  of  the  conscious  agent  —  freedom  to 
choose  and  to  realize  his  personal  ends  —  demands, 
then,  the  complex  arrangements  of  the  social  order. 
It  consists,  not  in  the  absence  of  social  relations,  but  in 
their  perfect  adjustment.  And  the  finer,  the  richer, 
the  more  flexible  the  adjustment,  the  greater  the  range 
of  freedom.  Even  the  strongest  man  is  freer  when  he 
comes  to  terms  with  the  crowd.  The  best  shot  in  the 
early  mining  camps  was  not  free  to  plan  a  personal 
career.  Freedom  to  follow  a  line  of  business  presup- 
poses first  of  all  an  established  police-power;  and  then 
an  established  system  of  currency,  of  transportation,  and 
of  commercial  law.  Freedom  to  realize  your  aims  in  a 
learned  profession  presupposes  well  developed  schools. 
Freedom  to  express  your  opinion  demands,  first,  protec- 
tion from  the  mob,  and  then,  on  a  higher  plane,  an 
established  convention  of  tolerance  and  fairness.  And 


280  Individual  Rights 

so  of  freedom  of  social  intercourse.  It  is  a  vulgar  error 
to  suppose  that  social  freedom  is  specially  characteristic 
of  those  who  are  ignorant  of  social  forms.  As  a  rule 
the  so-called  simple-minded  person  is  the  person  most 
easily  offended,  and  no  conventions  are  so  inflexible 
and  intolerant  as  those  of  a  small  and  remote  town. 
The  problem  of  making  any  considerable  number  of 
persons  mutually  agreeable,  even  in  a  physical  sense, 
is  one  of  no  small  complexity.  For  this  purpose  the 
conventions  of  polite  society  represent  as  a  rule  a  con- 
venient and  well-conceived  modus  vivendi.  Those  who 
enjoy  freedom  of  social  intercourse  on  any  extended 
scale  are  those  who  have  mastered  these  conventions  and 
can  use  them  intelligently. 

§  154.  I  hold,  then,  that  an  individualist  not  only 
may  be,  but  in  logic  must  be,  a  thorough-going  socialist. 
But  the  meaning  of  this  statement  must  be  taken  in 
strict  conformity  with  the  definition  that  I  have  given 
of  socialism.  I  have  defined  socialism  as  the  view 
which  stands  for  a  comprehensive  organization  of  society. 
And  this  I  also  conceive  to  embody  the  characteristic 
motif  of  socialistic  theory,  the  motive  which  as  a  matter 
of  history  has  differentiated  this  school  of  thought  from 
the  school  of  laissez  faire.  But  to  the  term  organization 
I  can,  for  my  part,  attach  but  one  meaning:  an  organiza- 
tion is  an  organization  of  differences.  A  social  organiza- 
tion is  an  organization  of  individuals;  and  beyond  the 
individuals  there  is  no  organization.  And  therefore  it 
is  false  to  say  that  in  the  organization  of  society 
the  individual  differences  are  to  be  "transcended"  or 
destroyed.  Individuality  can  never  be  transcended. 
In  the  measure  of  the  individuality  which  is  realized 
is  to  be  found  the  measure  of  the  reality  of  the  social 
organization.  An  organization  is  an  organization,  it 


Individualism  and  Socialism  281 

fulfils  its  own  meaning,  only  so  far  as,  in  a  harmonious 
system,  it  gives  free  play  to  individual  differences. 

I  think  it  fair  to  say  that  this  aspect  of  social  organiza- 
tion is  not  greatly  emphasized  in  the  socialism  of  the 
parties  and  the  schools.  Not  that  they  leave  it  out  of 
consideration,  nor  that  they  refuse  to  accept  it  as  an 
end.  But  it  is  never  the  primary  end,  never  even  a 
coordinate  end,  but  always  subordinate:  first  the  social- 
istic state,  with  its  absolute  control  over  the  individ- 
ual, and  then,  if  at  all,  a  consideration  of  individual 
rights.  Nor  is  this  communistic  emphasis  peculiar  to 
the  socialism  formally  so-called.  It  is  the  prominent 
element  in  most  present  programs  of  social  reform. 
Their  most  familiar  phrase  is  "the  common  good." 
More  narrowly  formulated,  this  common  good  will  usu- 
ally turn  out  to  consist  in  "the  greatest  happiness  of 
the  greatest  number,"  the  interest  of  the  masses  as 
against  the  classes,  of  the  majority  as  against  the 
minority,  of  "society"  as  against  the  individual.  All 
of  this  rests  upon  an  arithmetic  basis.  In  the  com- 
petition for  happiness  "everybody  is  to  count  for  one," 
no  matter  what  kind  of  a  one;  burdens  are  to  be  "equal- 
ized" without  asking  to  whom  they  belong;  and  the 
good  of  all,  in  the  sense  of  the  good  which  is  the  same 
for  all,  is  to  be  one  object  of  social  organization.  The 
implication  of  all  this  phraseology  is  that  social  organ- 
ization is  a  progress  toward  a  state  of  uniformity,  in 
which  the  individual  is  to  figure  as  an  impersonal, 
numerical  "one,"  holding  just  one  share  of  stock  in  an 
impersonal  common  good. 

Such  a  conception  embodies,  to  my  mind,  the  exact 
reverse  of  what  is  meant  by  social  organization.  And 
not  only  this,  it  reverses  the  order  which  organization 
has  actually  taken,  or  is  taking,  as  a  historical  or  present 


282  Individual  Rights 

process.  The  ideal  of  "everybody  to  count  for  one" 
would  appear  to  have  been  most  completely  realized 
in  the  communism  of  the  primitive  clan,  where,  indeed, 
nobody  counted  for  any  one  in  particular.  Such  a 
demand  is  today  the  characteristic  chiefly  of  the  more 
stupid  and  ignorant.  It  is  the  man  of  no  culture  to 
whom  difference  is  personally  offensive.  The  earliest 
awakening  of  social  consciousness  reveals  the  fact  that 
everybody  is  a  different  one;  and  the  progress  of  civil- 
ization has  simply  developed  these  differences.  It  has 
developed  them  in  the  very  process  of  bringing  them 
into  more  harmonious  relations.  No  special  optimism 
is  required  to  see  that  this  is  as  true  today  as  ever. 
As  I  have  remarked  earlier,  the  institution  of  property 
is  the  clearest  case  of  such  differentiation.  It  is  the 
most  objective  expression  of  the  idea  that  good  is  an 
individual  fact.  And  this  idea  is  also  the  ground,  at 
bottom,  upon  which  certain  forms  of  property  are  at 
present  subjected  to  criticism.  The  real  objection  is 
that  the  facts  of  distribution  fail  to  realize  the  dis- 
tributive idea.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  we  need 
a  revision  in  many  directions.  But  if  this  is  to  mark 
an  advance  in  social  organization,  it  must  be  based, 
not  upon  any  obscure  and  impersonal  "common  good," 
but  upon  a  finer  and  more  accurate  analysis  of  mutual 
relations  and  individual  deserts. 

§  155.  I  should  like  to  be  able  to  supplement  these 
general  principles  with  a  suggestion  of  a  concrete  pro- 
gram, but  this  would  lead  me  into  fields  of  special 
investigation  where,  as  a  layman,  I  have  hardly  the 
right  to  speak.  Yet,  within  my  rights  as  a  layman, 
I  may  venture  perhaps  to  offer  one  or  two  illustra- 
tions to  mark  the  difference  between  the  enforcement 
of  uniformity  and  an  organization  for  freedom.  The 


Individualism  and  Socialism  283 

last  few  years  have  witnessed  the  passage  of  a  number 
of  "pure-food"  laws.  To  many  —  some  who  were 
concerned  for  the  safety  of  democratic  institutions, 
others  for  the  privilege  of  selling  adulterated  goods  — 
such  laws  have  seemed  dangerously  "socialistic."  And 
of  course  they  are  dangerous;  just  as  automobiles  and 
aeroplanes  are  dangerous  until  knowledge  and  responsi- 
bility become  commensurate  with  their  demands.  But 
what  is  to  be  noted  by  us  is  that  laws  of  this  kind  are 
radically  different  in  principle  from  the  sumptuary 
laws  of  former  times  or  the  present  tariff  laws,  or,  in 
particular,  the  laws  governing  the  sale  of  intoxicating 
liquors.  For  their  chief  arm  is  not  to  prescribe  what 
may  be  manufactured  and  sold,  but  simply  how  it  shall 
be  labelled.  The  man  who  has  covered  his  griddle- 
cakes  with  "Vermont  Maple  Syrup"  may  still,  if  he 
likes,  and  perhaps  quite  reasonably,  indulge  in  "Vermont 
Syrup,  made  from  the  Best  Cane  Sugar";  only  now  he 
is  brought  face  to  face  with  the  truth.  And  in  the  truth, 
here  as  everywhere  else,  there  is  freedom;  for  the  con- 
sumer, who  can  now  choose  what  he  will  buy  and  eat; 
for  the  honest  dealer,  who  can  now  expect  to  get  an 
appropriate  return  for  genuine  goods;  for  every  one  but 
the  dishonest  manufacturer  who  is  unable  to  compete 
except  by  misrepresentation,  and  whose  freedom  is  ex 
hypothesi  not  to  be  considered.  And  in  this  revela- 
tion of  the  truth  there  is  realized  the  most  natural  and 
most  inalienable  of  all  natural  rights,  namely,  the  right 
to  know.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  whiskey 
obtained  by  one  process  is  as  good,  or  as  bad,  as  that 
obtained  by  another.  This  is  to  be  settled  by  the  man 
who  drinks  whiskey,  at  least  not  by  the  man  who  makes 
it.  But  in  any  case  he  who  drinks  whiskey  has  a  sacred 
right  to  know  what  he  drinks. 


284  Individual  Rights 

Nor,  in  this  enforced  publication  of  the  truth,  is  there 
anything  new,  or  revolutionary,  or  "undemocratic." 
Rather  the  reverse.  The  most  fundamental  condition 
of  democratic  government,  a  condition  directly  implied 
in  "the  consent  of  the  governed,"  is  that  the  governed 
shall  have  exact  knowledge  of  their  situation.  Our 
appreciation  of  the  worth  of  this  condition,  and  of  the 
tremendous  power  which  it  confers,  is  expressed  in  the 
demand  for  the  freedom  of  the  press.  It  is  precisely 
in  accord  with  the  idea  of  democratic  government  that 
it  should  define  the  standards  of  commerce.  The 
government  has  always  denned  the  standard  of  money, 
and  almost  its  strictest  and  severest  laws  are  those 
against  counterfeiting.  No  one  would  deny  that  upon 
the  right  performance  of  this  function  rests  the  whole 
freedom  of  commerce.  Until  recently  there  has  been 
no  necessity  for  a  similar  standard  for  goods.  When 
your  butcher  lives  down  the  street  and  kills,  and  perhaps 
grows,  his  own  cattle,  and  when,  moreover,  neither  of 
you  suspects  the  possibility  of  tuberculosis,  freedom  of 
commerce  is  secured  through  personal  acquaintance. 
The  extension  of  commerce  has  made  it  clear  that 
freedom  must  now  be  secured  through  the  application 
of  governmental  standards;  the  development  of  knowl- 
edge has  shown  that  these  standards  must  be  denned 
and  administered  with  scientific  intelligence;  and  in  the 
successful  execution  of  such  a  program  we  may  hope 
to  enjoy  a  greater  freedom  than  before.  Precisely 
this  is  true,  however,  for  every  line  of  trade.  From  the 
standpoint  of  freedom  of  commerce,  pure  wool  and  pure 
linen  stand  quite  as  much  in  need  of  definition  as 
pure  food;  and  similar  definitions  would  be  useful  for 
machinery  and  furniture.  In  fact,  we  shall  only  then 
enjoy  a  final  freedom  of  commerce  when  every  article 


Individualism  and  Socialism  285 

offered  for  sale  is  accompanied  by  an  authoritative 
description  based  upon  an  intelligent  standard  for 
denning  the  various  grades  and  kinds  in  that  line  of 
goods. 

§  156.  For  some  time  past  we  have  been  engaged  in 
an  effort  to  regulate  the  rates  of  transportation.  I  am 
aware  that  the  problem  of  rate-making  is  one  of  enormous 
complexity,  and  I  therefore  hesitate  to  touch  it.  But  I 
think  that  even  a  moral  philosopher  might  hope  to 
understand  the  general  principle  of  rate-adjustment, 
and  in  particular  to  learn  whether  it  is  a  principle  of 
justice  or  of  brotherly  love.  So  far  as  one  may  learn 
from  general  discussion  it  would  seem  that  the  principle 
is  not  yet  clearly  defined.  On  the  one  hand  there  is  a 
demand  for  an  apportionment  of  rate  to  service,  —  so 
that  each  community  may  enjoy  the  advantages,  or 
bear  the  disadvantages,  of  its  distance  from  the  markets. 
On  the  other  hand  there  is  a  tendency  to  treat  the 
state-control  of  railways  as  a  means  for  "equalizing 
the  burden,"  of  modifying  the  disadvantages  of  remote 
localities  by  subtracting  somewhat  from  the  advantages 
of  the  nearer,  or  of  modifying  the  disadvantages  of  the 
weight  of  one  kind  of  goods,  such  as  coal,  by  imputing 
an  artificial  weight  —  or  bulk,  or  other  rate-factor  — 
to  hats. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  which  concep- 
tion of  rate-control  is  an  organization  for  freedom,  or 
which,  again,  is  in  the  communistic  sense  "socialistic." 
Apportionment  of  rate  to  service  represents,  it  seems  to 
me,  a  definite  principle;  and  a  just  principle,  whose 
significance  is  not  destroyed  by  the  difficulties  of  a 
perfectly  exact  definition.  I  recognize  the  difficulties, 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  they  are  not  different  in  kind 
from  those  involved  in  other  apportionments  of  responsi- 


286  Individual  Rights 

bilities,  in  which,  nevertheless,  we  are  able  to  reach 
an  approximately  satisfactory  result.  Such  a  principle 
means,  first,  that  the  man  who,  dissatisfied  with  the 
conditions  of  life  borne  by  his  neighbors,  buys  land  or 
sets  up  in  business  in  another  place,  assumes  the  respon- 
sibilities of  his  choice;  secondly,  that  he  is  not  deprived 
of  the  profits  of  an  intelligent  choice,  or  of  an  intelligently 
constructive  enterprise,  by  arbitrary  legislation.  In 
other  words,  the  principle  here  is  the  same  as  that 
involved  hi  pure  food.  We  forbid  the  poor  grocer  to 
mix  his  olive  oil  with  cotton-seed;  we  forbid  the  unfor- 
tunate citizen  to  put  brass  into  his  dollar;  on  what  ground 
should  we  stamp  an  inaccessible  place  "accessible"? 
And  here  again  freedom  of  exchange  is  furthered  by  a 
scientific  determination  of  the  truth.  It  should  not 
be  forgotten  that  in  these  days  freight-charges  have 
become  a  nearly  universal  ingredient  of  market-values, 
and  therefore  that  an  established  standard  of  rates  is 
now  nearly  as  important  as  an  established  currency. 
How,  then,  does  a  fiat-rate  differ  from  a  _/m/-dollar? 
"Equalizing  the  burden"  furnishes  no  definite  principle. 
What  it  really  amounts  to  is  a  scheme  for  determining 
the  rate  of  freight  on  the  principle  of  brotherly  love. 
It  proposes  in  a  general  way  that  we  should  bear  one 
another's  burdens,  but  when  it  comes  to  the  point, 
as  in  the  case  of  other  applications  of  the  fraternal 
principle,  it  is  unable  to  state  even  a  rule  for  determin- 
ing how  much  of  the  burden  should  be  borne  by  each. 
Here,  of  course,  I  shall  encounter  the  objection  that, 
in  the  matter  of  rates,  the  question  of  justice  versus 
brotherly  love  is  irrelevant;  that  the  determination  of 
rates  is  a  matter,  not  of  ethics,  but  of  economics;  and 
that  in  economics  the  principle  of  rate-determination 
is  settled  and  established.  Says  Professor  Logan  G. 


Individualism  and  Socialism  287 

McPherson,10  "Much  as  the  principles  underlying  the 
transportation  charge  have  been  discussed,  all  writers 
of  recognized  authority  agree  that  the  proper  basis  is 
what  the  traffic  will  bear."  As  if  the  proper  basis  for 
rates  could  ever  be  a  question  of  authority!  But, 
this  aside,  I  maintain  that  "what  the  traffic  will  bear" 
is  not,  properly  speaking,  an  intelligent  principle,  as 
shown  very  clearly  by  the  argument  of  the  chapter  in 
which  the  above  statement  appears.  The  main  purpose 
of  this  argument  is  to  show  that  a  calculation  of  the 
ingredients  that  enter  into  the  cost  of  a  given  service 
is  too  complicated  to  be  undertaken;  (it  does  not  explicitly 
affirm  that  these  factors,  if  determinable,  could  be  dis- 
regarded); and  therefore  that  the  only  thing  to  do  is 
to  charge  what  the  traffic  will  bear.  Now  I  will  not 
deny  that  this  may  be  an  expedient  rule.  Under  the 
present  conditions  of  ignorance  it  may  be  the  only 
possible  rule.  But  a  rule  based  upon  ignorance  and 
immediate  necessity  is  very  far  from  being  an  intelligent 
principle.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  not  a  principle  which  by 
its  logical  character  is  fitted  to  express  the  intentions  of 
an  intelligent  man;  or,  as  the  case  may  be,  of  an  intelli- 
gent community. 

And  really,  taken  in  itself,  "what  the  traffic  will 
bear"  is  quite  without  meaning.  For,  after  all,  what 
will  the  traffic  bear?  That,  you  will  perceive,  must 
depend  somewhat  upon  what  the  traffic  conceives  itself 
to  be  bearing.  As  long  as  the  hatter  is  not  distinctly 
aware  that  his  rate  of  freight  is  swollen  to  meet  the  cost 
of  carrying  coal  he  may  bear  it.  When  the  point  is 
made  clear  he  will  no  longer  bear  it  so  easily.  The 
whole  meaning  of  the  present  agitation  is  that  the 
people  at  large  are  becoming  aware  of  what  they  are 

10  Railroad  Freight  Rates  (New  York,  1909),  p.  230. 


288  Individual  Rights 

bearing  and  are  therefore  raising  the  question  of  why 
they  should  bear  it.  It  is  no  sufficient  reply  to  show 
them  that  they  do  bear  it.  A  really  intelligent  reply 
will  require  an  analysis  of  the  whole  situation,  includ- 
ing those  elements  of  cost  which  Professor  McPherson 
declares  to  be  indeterminable.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
cost  is  the  final  determinant.  It  does  say,  however, 
that  hi  a  situation  once  brought  to  consciousness,  cost, 
like  every  other  aspect,  is  bound  to  be  considered.  And 
this  is  specially  true  of  the  case  before  us.  It  is  all 
very  well  to  say  to  a  customer,  "This  is  the  price  of 
the  service.  Take  it  or  leave  it.  The  cost  is  none  of 
your  affair."  This  presupposes  a  customer  unable  to 
compel  an  answer  to  his  question.  Give  him  the  power 
of  cross-examination,  and  almost  his  first  question  will 
be  that  relating  to  cost.  In  any  case  he  is  bound  to 
take  up  the  matter  from  an  ethical  point  of  view. 

So,  I  say,  the  ethical  question  is  distinctly  relevant; 
and  this  in  spite  of  the  difficulty  of  securing  a  satis- 
factory answer.  Such  a  question  is  involved  necessarily 
in  the  conception  of  rate-making  or  rate-paying  as  a 
self-conscious  and  intelligent  process.  And  this  con- 
sideration, as  I  have  suggested  before,  is  applicable 
to  economic  principles  generally.  The  independence  of 
ethical  considerations  attributed  to  economic  laws  pre- 
supposes that  the  operation  of  the  laws  is  unconscious. 
An  economic  law  become  self-conscious  is  thereby  com- 
pelled to  take  issue  with  ethical  principles,  and  there- 
after to  justify  itself  upon  ethical  grounds.  As  an 
impersonal  natural  law  it  will  no  longer  work. 

§  157.  The  principle  of  justice  requires,  then,  that, 
in  the  matter  of  rates  of  freight,  as  in  other  matters, 
every  man  should  bear  his  own  burden.  Now  it  is 
quite  possible,  of  course,  that  the  application  of  the 


Individualism  and  Socialism  289 

individualistic  principle  may  itself  dictate  the  temporary 
assumption  of  the  burdens  of  weaker  communities.  It 
may  in  certain  cases  be  profitable  for  all  concerned  to 
offer  special  inducements  for  the  settlement  of  newer 
lands.  The  point  that  I  should  make  here,  however, 
is  that,  in  a  scientific  organization  of  society  upon 
individualistic  principles,  the  nature  and  extent  of  such 
concessions  would  be  clearly  defined  and  temporally 
limited,  and  they  would  never  be  hidden  under  the 
guise  of  an  ordinary  rate  of  freight.  And  this  leads 
me  to  a  final  remark  in  this  connection.  It  may  seem 
an  anti-climax  to  close  a  discussion  of  individualism  and 
socialism  with  a  homily  upon  the  importance  of  accurate 
book-keeping  as  a  matter  of  public  policy.  Yet  you 
will  readily  see  that  careful  distinction  of  accounts  on 
the  public  ledger  is  the  first  condition  of  a  self-con- 
scious national  life.  And  this  national  self-conscious- 
ness is  the  very  foundation  of  democratic  institutions. 
Upon  this  depends  both  their  efficiency,  from  the  stand- 
point of  administration,  and  their  guarantee  of  freedom. 
The  primary  condition  of  freedom  is  that  the  citizen 
in  casting  his  vote  shall  know  what  he  means.  I  doubt 
if  there  is  any  constitutional  government  under  which 
this  is  less  the  case  than  our  own.  The  expenses  of 
our  postal  system  are  partly  for  the  carriage  of  mail; 
partly  for  the  prevention  of  swindling  and  the  protec- 
tion of  private  morals;  mainly,  however,  it  would  seem, 
for  the  encouragement  of  cheap  periodical  literature. 
Further,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  postal  department 
carries  the  government  mail  free  (including  the  private 
mail  of  members  of  Congress)  and  at  the  same  time 
receives  a  subsidy.  Under  the  conditions  no  man 
alive  can  say  what  this  subsidy  represents,  or  whether 
the  postal  system  is,  from  a  business  point  of  view,  an 
19 


290  Individual  Rights 

efficient  institution.  Under  our  tariff  system  a  man 
contributes  toward  a  battleship  while  under  the  impres- 
sion that  he  is  only  buying  a  coat.  He  pays  a  high 
rate  of  freight  upon  certain  goods,  presumably  for 
transportation,  mostly,  if  for  any  definite  reason,  for 
insurance.  His  "flat  rate"  for  water,  where  the  water 
is  supplied  by  the  municipality,  pays  as  a  rule  not  merely 
for  the  water  consumed  by  himself,  but  for  that  used 
on  the  streets  and  in  the  public  buildings,  and  perhaps 
for  some  contributed  to  his  neighbor  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  cleanliness;  I  have  known  it  to  represent  a 
subsidy  to  local  industry.  It  is  quite  in  line  with  all 
this  to  have  a  national  Supreme  Court  whose  function, 
under  the  guise  of  interpretation,  is  to  amend  the  con- 
stitution from  time  to  time  to  meet  changing  conditions. 
"The  beauty  of  the  system  is  its  flexibility."  Such 
"flexibility,"  however,  is  a  mere  euphemism  for  civic 
irresponsibility.  What  it  amounts  to  is  that,  with  the 
infinite  possibility  of  doing  one  thing  in  the  name  of 
another,  we  pass  through  and  contribute  to  important 
changes  in  the  social  order  of  which  we  are  never  really 
conscious.  The  issue  is  not  made  clear.  The  outcome 
is  not  really  chosen.  And  so  far  our  government  is  not 
in  any  .real  sense  a  government  by  the  people. 

Just  at  present  we  are  entering  upon  a  career  of  state 
and  municipal  enterprise.  As  noted  before,  society 
has  no  more  right  than  the  individual  to  base  its  action 
upon  arbitrary  grounds.  The  simple  statement,  "It 
is  so  ordered,"  is  no  sufficient  justification  of  a  municipal 
enterprise;  it  must  show  that,  as  against  any  private 
enterprise,  it  can  more  profitably  meet  the  demands 
of  the  situation.  But  it  can  never  show  this  as  long  as 
public  and  private  service,  and  the  several  kinds  of 
public  service,  remain  undistinguished.  And  if  these 


Individualism  and  Socialism  291 

ends  are  to  be  properly  distinguished,  public  enterprise 
must  adopt  as  far  as  possible  the  point  of  view  of  the 
private  entrepreneur,  treating  its  employees  as  ordinary 
wage-earners  and  the  municipality  or  the  state  as  one 
of  its  several  customers.  In  other  words,  it  must  be 
an  individual  among  individuals.  This  quasi-'mdivid- 
uality  involves  no  artificial  distinction;  it  is  simply 
the  kind  of  distinction  implied  necessarily  in  a  higher 
and  more  self-conscious  social  organization. 


292  Individual  Rights 


IV  THE  LOGIC  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROBLEM 

§  158.  And  now  a  few  concluding  remarks  upon  the 
relation  of  these  views  to  the  problems  of  actual  life. 
It  is  possible  that  the  total  result  of  my  argument  will 
be  to  raise  the  following  general  question:  "You  have 
shown  (let  us  assume)  that  a  society  of  conscious  beings 
will,  in  consequence  of  their  self-consciousness,  combine 
a  perfect  individual  freedom  with  a  perfect  cooperative 
adjustment.  But  who  is  the  conscious  being?  By 
your  own  admission  no  human  being,  no  most  intelligent 
human  being,  is  more  than  half-conscious.  The  only 
really  self-conscious  beings,  if  any  there  be,  are  the 
gods.  Accordingly,  for  them,  and  for  them  alone,  is 
reserved  the  perfect  harmony  of  individual  good  and 
social  welfare.  It  may  be  that  in  ages  to  come  men 
themselves  will  be  gods.  But  for  us  who  now  are  — 
and  according  to  you  we  are  first  to  be  considered  — 
any  perfect  harmony  of  interests  is  indefinitely  remote. 
Of  what  value,  then,  is  a  theory  of  the  social  relations 
of  perfectly  self-conscious  beings?  Would  it  not  be 
more  to  the  point  to  define  a  principle  of  compromise 
for  disposing  of  the  difficulties  that  arise  from  our  present 
imperfectly  conscious  state?" 

This,  however,  I  should  reply,  is  what  I  am  directly 
attempting  to  do.  It  must  be  remembered  that  in  an 
unconscious  situation  no  compromise  is  either  called 
for  or  possible.  The  adjustments  of  unconscious  beings 
are  provided  for,  and  at  the  same  time  rigidly  deter- 
mined, by  the  "laws  of  nature," -  — gravitation,  survival 
of  the  fittest,  supply  and  demand.  Responsibility  for 
effecting  a  compromise  implies  the  introduction  into 
the  situation  of  an  idea,  of  a  purpose  to  be  realized. 


Logic  of  the  Social  Problem  293 

But  this  alters  our  view  of  the  whole  situation.  We 
are  tempted  to  conceive  our  practical  program  as  a 
tabulated  system  of  expedients  for  applying  given  ideas 
to  given  sets  of  conditions.  But  the  truth  is  that  a 
mere  description  of  the  conditions  will  depend  upon  the 
meaning  of  the  ideas.  The  trunk  of  a  tree,  for  example. 
It  is  not  "  wood,"  and  will  never  be  such,  apart  from  the 
presence  of  human  purpose.  So  of  the  social  situation. 
Any  problem  of  social  adjustment,  conceived  even  as  a 
matter  of  compromise,  implies  the  possibility  of  re- 
adjusting economic  conditions  according  to  a  social  idea. 
But  the  idea  will  be  implied  in  a  mere  statement  of  the 
conditions.  And  the  question  is,  What  idea? 

To  my  mind  this  is  the  first  question,  even  for  pur- 
poses of  compromise.  For  there  may  be  compromise 
and  compromise.  And  infinite  degrees  of  compromise. 
One  compromise  barely  misses  a  perfect  logical  solu- 
tion, another  is  almost  meaningless.  But  whether  a 
given  compromise  shall  be  one  or  the  other,  and  how 
far,  will  depend  upon  the  clearness  of  the  guiding  idea. 
For  no  purpose  of  life  can  the  idea  be  too  clearly  stated. 
In  most  of  our  colleges  there  is  a  marking-system, 
according  to  which  a  student's  work  is  graded  A,  B,  C, 
etc.,  upon  a  basis  of  percentage.  No  teacher  can  of 
course  with  perfect  conviction  decide  that  (e.g.)  an  inter- 
pretation of  Plato's  "Republic"  is  85  per  cent  good. 
Yet  he  will  find  that  the  more  definitely  he  attempts 
to  state  the  meaning  of  "85  per  cent  good"  as  applied 
to  such  cases,  the  more  satisfied  he  will  be  that  his 
grades  express  that  proportionality  of  merit  which  the 
marking  system  calls  for.  So  of  the  social  problem. 
The  problem  of  social  relations  is  the  problem  of  adjust- 
ing the  ends  of  intelligent  beings.  What  is  the  modus 
operandi  of  intelligence?  What  social  relations  are 


294  Individual  Rights 

implied  in  the  idea  of  intelligent  beings?  In  a  problem 
involving  these  questions  no  analysis  can  be  too  search- 
ing, or  too  remote  to  be  relevant  to  the  immediate  issue. 
And  upon  the  clearness  of  the  resulting  idea  will  depend 
the  extent  to  which  our  social  order  is  a  solution  or  an 
illogical  compromise.  Even  though  we  learn  that  the 
only  perfectly  intelligent  beings  are  the  gods,  that  too 
will  be  relevant;  for  in  the  measure  in  which  we  grasp 
the  meaning  of  that,  we  too  shall  be  gods  and  shall 
establish  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  upon  earth. 

§  159.  And  so,  what  is  the  idea?  The  idea,  namely, 
of  intelligent  social  relations?  The  answer  to  this 
question  will  be  a  final  summary  and  repetition  of  the 
main  points  of  our  doctrine.  First,  the  idea  of  the 
social  good:  the  social  good  is  not  a  common  good,  but 
first,  last,  and  always  a  mutual  and  distributive  good. 
And  here  let  us  take  a  final  glance  at  the  common  good. 
According  to  my  view  the  common  good  represents  the 
most  illogical  of  all  compromises.  It  is  that  com- 
promise which  expresses  the  minimum  of  social  idea. 
In  other  words,  it  is  the  expression,  not  of  our  social 
consciousness,  but  of  our  social  unconsciousness.  It  is 
a  kind  of  notion  that  never  occurs  to  us  where  the  dis- 
tributive relations  are  reasonably  clear.  For  example, 
it  would  be  thought  a  grotesque  idea  if  a  railroad, 
hauling  from  the  same  mine  to  the  same  town,  five 
cars  of  coal  to  one  dealer  and  one  car  to  another,  should 
charge  each  with  the  freight  for  three  cars  "for  the 
common  good."  Yet  this  is  precisely  what  is  implied 
in  the  idea.  "Everybody  to  count  for  one  and  nobody 
for  more  than  one,"  —  leave  this  out  and  the  common 
good  loses  its  last  vestige  of  meaning. 

In  the  political  economy  based  upon  the  older  indus- 
trial regime  the  common  good  is  little  in  evidence. 


Logic  of  the  Social  Problem  295 

The  older  economists  found  their  way  into  the  subject 
from  the  standpoint  of  an  exceedingly  small  and  isolated 
village-community  consisting  of  half  a  dozen  hunters 
or  fishermen.  This  was  supposed  to  represent  an 
elementary  economic  group.  One  of  this  number 
conceived  the  idea  of  staying  at  home  and  making 
canoes  or  bows  and  arrows  in  exchange  for  fish  and  game. 
Hence,  the  institution  of  commerce.  Here,  however, 
the  distributive  relations  are  reasonably  clear.  Nothing 
was  involved  beyond  the  immediate  group,  and  within 
the  group  the  individual  contribution  could  be  easily 
estimated.  Hence,  there  was  no  occasion  for  reference 
to  a  common  good  or  to  an  undistributed  "social 
product";  for  clearly  every  product  was  an  individual 
product.  All  is  changed,  however,  when  from  this 
primitive  situation  we  turn  to  the  economic  situation 
of  today.  The  relation  of  exchange  involves  now,  not 
a  bare  half  dozen,  but  millions  upon  millions.  The 
problem  of  determining  even  the  general  facts  about 
mutual  relations  is  thus  appallingly  complex.  How  are 
these  individual  accounts  to  be  adjusted  and  balanced? 
At  this  juncture  appears  "the  common  good"  with  a 
short  and  easy  method.  The  book-keeper  who  finds 
himself  in  difficulty  over  a  bill  of  expense  may  dispose  of 
the  matter  by  charging  it  all  to  "General  Expenses," 
"Sundries,"  or  "Profit  and  Loss."  Why  not  open  a 
general-expense  account  on  the  social  ledger?  Then, 
whatever  good  cannot  be  clearly  located  in  an  individual 
may  be  charged,  or  credited,  to  the  common  good,  and 
any  product  for  which  the  responsibility  is  not  clear 
may  be  called  "the  product  of  social  activity." 

Such  I  conceive  to  be  the  natural  history  of  the  con- 
ception of  the  common  good.  So  interpreted,  it  is 
the  expression  of  ignorance,  of  ignorance  more  or  less 


296  Individual  Rights 

inevitable,  but  still  of  ignorance.  And  it  presupposes 
the  logic  of  ignorance,  the  maxim  of  which  is  that 
quantities  not  clearly  conceived  must  be  conceived  to 
be  equal.  And  this  again,  it  is  not  irrelevant  to  note, 
is  the  principle  of  the  so-called  logic  of  chance  and 
theory  of  probabilities.  Heads  or  tails?  The  chances, 
we  say,  are  equal.  But  this  stands  for  practically  little 
more  than  a  complete  ignorance  of  the  determining  con- 
ditions, —  that  is  to  say,  a  complete  absence  of  ground 
for  saying  one  thing  or  the  other.  Really,  of  course, 
the  possibilities  are  never  equal;  when  the  penny  is 
once  in  the  air  its  fall  is  absolutely  determined.  Now 
the  common  good  is  but  one  of  the  expressions  of  this 
logic  of  chance.  We  should  hardly  make  use  of  the 
conception  where  the  distributive  relations  were  known. 
If  you  were  dining  Jack  Spratt  and  his  wife  it  would 
never  occur  to  you  to  make  a  common  distribution  of 
fat  and  lean.  But  when  you  are  carving  for  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  X,  who  modestly  refuse  to  express  a  preference 
for  light  or  dark,  you  serve  each  with  some  light  and  some 
dark  on  the  principle  that  "the  chances  are  equal." 

The  logic  of  the  common  good  is,  therefore,  the  logic 
of  ignorance.  And  humanly  speaking,  this  ignorance 
is  more  or  less  inevitable.  Certainly  I  have  no  wish 
to  underestimate  the  complexity  of  economic  problems 
or  to  suggest  a  lack  of  respect  for  economic  thought. 
All  that  I  wish  to  point  out  is  that,  whatever  the  obscurity 
of  the  situation,  it  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
whether  you  approach  it  with  the  right  idea;  which  in 
the  present  case  I  hold  to  be  the  distributive  idea. 
No  good  in  the  world  is  an  absolutely  common  good. 
No  human  product  is  the  product  of  a  purely  "social" 
activity.  Each  individual  in  the  social  world,  like  each 
atom  in  the  physical  world,  makes  a  difference,  and, 


Logic  of  the  Social  Problem  297 

because  he  is  a  conscious  being,  an  individual  difference. 
These  differences  are  never  absolutely  obscure.  No 
object  which  is  even  felt  is  absolutely  opaque.  No 
good,  once  critically  examined,  is  indistinguishably  "com- 
mon.9' Our  aim  as  conscious  beings  is  to  make  the  social 
organization  express  these  differences.  How  far  we 
shall  do  so  will  depend  upon  how  far  we  keep  in  mind 
the  distinctively  social  idea. 

§  1 60.  Secondly,  the  idea  of  the  social  problem. 
According  to  the  view  expressed  here  the  social  problem 
is  a  practical  problem;  in  other  words,  a  technological 
problem.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  not  a  sentimental,  or  a 
homiletical,  or  even  an  "educational"  problem;  not  a 
problem  of  stimulating  a  "consciousness  of  kind,"  or 
of  cultivating  a  disposition  toward  altruism  or  self-sacri- 
fice, or  a  feeling  of  brotherly  love,  or  even  of  develop- 
ing "a  habit  of  looking  at  all  things  from  a  social  point 
of  view."  What  the  social  problem  calls  for  is  not  a 
change  of  heart,  but  a  change  of  conditions.  Any  im- 
provement of  conditions  must,  indeed,  be  the  expression 
of  an  enlarged  intelligence  and  a  more  comprehensive 
mutual  understanding;  and  thus,  indeed,  of  a  spiritual 
change.  But  the  very  nature  of  such  a  change,  as 
denned  by  us,  forbids  that  we  should  entertain  for  a 
moment  the  idea  of  solution  by  self-sacrifice;  of  striving 
for  self-forgetfulness  and  contentment  in  the  common 
good.  According  to  us  the  growth  of  the  spirit  is  in 
the  direction,  not  of  self-forgetfulness,  but  of  self-asser- 
tion. Our  aim  is  not  to  make  the  common  good  our  own, 
but  to  make  our  own  good  a  social  possibility. 

A  problem  which  seeks  this  result  is  a  problem  of 
technical  analysis  and  adjustment.  As  I  have  pointed 
out  earlier,  the  logic  of  the  social  problem  is  the  same 
as  that  of  a  problem  of  mechanical  invention.  No 


298  Individual  Rights 

problem  of  invention  is  a  question  of  securing  a  single 
simple  result,  but  of  securing  this  and  that  —  e.g., 
speed  and  safety  —  and  combining  the  two  ends  with 
artistic  perfection  and  completeness.  What  the  inventor 
seeks  is  first  of  all  a  statement  of  the  ends  to  be  com- 
bined. The  social  problem  requires  of  each  person  a 
frank  and  intelligent  statement  of  what  he  wants.  It 
may  be  that  clearness  and  certainty  of  self-assertion 
will  be  reached  only  through  a  process  of  trial  and 
errer,  —  the  same  is  true  of  course  in  mechanical  inven- 
tion. And  in  the  meantime  we  must  endure  (not  be 
contented  with)  an  imperfect  compromise.  But  to  the 
extent  that  we  approach  the  problem  with  a  clear  idea 
of  its  nature  and  of  the  methodology  involved  in  its 
solution,  the  waste  of  trial  and  error  will  be  minimized 
and  the  compromise  will  be  transformed  in  the  direction 
of  a  logical  solution. 

§  161.  Third  and  last,  then,  the  idea  of  individual 
duty.  Under  existing  conditions  what  is  the  obligation 
of  the  individual  with  regard  to  a  given  social  enter- 
prise? In  our  Third  Lecture  it  has  been  pointed  out 
that  all  obligation,  including  moral  and  social  obliga- 
tion, must  be  justified  by  self-interest;  yet  that  an 
intelligently  self-regarding  person  will  be,  in  the  last 
analysis,  a  profitable  member  of  society,  and  con- 
versely. But  the  question  remains  how  these  criteria 
are  to  applied.  For  it  is  obvious  that,  under  human 
conditions,  we  never  reach  the  last  analysis.  As  the 
situation  presents  itself,  there  are  cases  where  a  response 
to  the  demands  of  society  is  clearly  to  my  own  interest, 
other  cases  where  it  would  be  clearly  to  my  loss;  in 
these  cases  the  application  of  the  individualistic  principle 
is  perfectly  clear.  But  there  is  a  third  class  of  cases, 
and  perhaps  the  largest  class,  which  are  not  clear  one 


Logic  of  the  Social  Problem  299 

way  or  the  other.  What  of  the  stranger  who  appears 
at  my  door  with  a  demand  that  calls  for  considerable 
attention  and  outlay?  May  I  confidently  expect  to 
have  entertained  "an  angel  unawares"?  Or  suppose 
that,  as  a  university  professor,  I  am  requested  by  the 
university  authorities  to  devote  a  considerable  amount 
of  extra  time  and  attention  to  some  object  in  which  I 
am  not  personally  interested?  Shall  I  recklessly  cast 
my  bread  upon  the  waters  confident  that  it  will  return? 
Or  shall  I  adopt  the  policy  that  what  is  not  clearly  in 
furtherance  of  my  personal  interests  shall  receive  no 
attention? 

To  these  questions  the  reply  must  be,  so  far  as  a 
reply  may  be  given,  that  individual  duty  is  a  matter 
of  enlightened  self-interest.  In  other  words,  the  problem 
of  individual  duty,  like  that  of  social  adjustment,  is  a 
practical  and  technological  problem.  And  this  means 
that,  while  no  rules  can  be  offered  for  dealing  with 
particular  cases,  the  idea  to  be  applied  to  them,  for 
determining  the  risks  to  be  accepted  or  refused,  is  the 
same  idea  that  would  be  applied  to  any  other  problem 
where  the  end  in  view  was  self-interest.  Suppose  you 
were  called  upon  to  advise  a  young  man  entering  busi- 
ness. Would  you  counsel  him  to  take  up  every  offer 
that  presented  even  the  remotest  suggestion  of  profit? 
Or  to  confine  himself  to  those  enterprises  in  which  the 
profit  were  certain  and  clear?  Obviously  neither.  In 
the  first  case  his  capital  would  soon  be  dissipated;  in 
the  second  case  his  business  activity  would  be  confined 
within  a  small  and  narrow  field.  Or  suppose  it  were  a 
question  of  what  to  read.  You  would  never  advise  a 
man  to  read  any  book  in  which  he  might  conceivably 
become  interested,  nor  yet  to  confine  his  reading  within 
the  lines  of  his  established  tastes.  The  same  kind  of 


300  Individual  Rights 

situation  is  presented  by  the  moral  problem.  Here  too 
our  capital  is  more  or  less  limited.  The  possibilities 
of  attention  forbid  that  our  sympathies  be  extended 
indefinitely.  If  we  extend  our  social  relations  too  far, 
the  result  is  dissipation  and  extravagance  and  nothing 
of  solid  value  either  for  us  or  for  our  fellows.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  we  confine  them  within  the  field  of  the 
certainly  profitable,  we  become  narrow  and  mean,  and 
in  refusing  to  come  to  terms  with  others  we  miss  the 
possibilities  of  life  for  ourselves.  Granting  that  the 
good  for  me  must  be  a  good  finally  for  self  I  am  not 
therefore  justified  in  maintaining  an  ultra-conservative 
self  nor  yet  in  giving  free  rein  to  an  extravagantly  liberal 
self.  Somewhere  between  meanness  and  extravagance 
there  lies,  as  Aristotle  points  out,  a  middle  ground  of 
generosity  within  which  my  real  good  lies.  To  keep  this 
in  mind  is  a  policy  of  enlightened  practical  wisdom.  Yet, 
as  a  matter  of  practical  policy,  you  would  never  advise 
a  man  simply  to  keep  within  a  vaguely  middle  ground. 
As  I  have  said  before,  no  situation  which  you  approach 
with  an  idea  is  ever  absolutely  opaque.  The  idea  of 
moral  obligation  is  that  of  a  mutually  profitable  enter- 
prise. The  considerations  involved  in  any  final  calcu- 
lation of  profit,  when  the  term  is  used  in  the  larger  sense, 
are  complicated  in  the  extreme.  But  the  situation  is 
never  quite  formless  when  the  meaning  of  obligation  is 
kept  clearly  in  mind.  When  this  is  done  the  middle 
ground  begins  to  develop  distinctions  and  relations  and 
the  compromise  is  altered  in  the  direction  of  a  more 
exact  coordination. 

§  162.  And  so  the  idea  of  individual  duty  is  that  of 
social  intercourse  measured  and  controlled.  Yet  once 
again  I  wish  to  point  out  that  there  is  nothing  in  our 
individualism  which  is  not  in  idea  generous  and  humane. 


Logic  of  the  Social  Problem  301 

Individualism  stands  for  personal  freedom.  But  our 
very  demand  for  freedom  is  a  demand  to  live  on  terms 
of  conscious  fellowship  in  a  world  richly  peopled  with 
free  beings  such  as  we  ourselves  aim  to  be.  Where 
you  or  I  have  failed  to  come  to  terms  with  our  fellows 
our  lives  are  incomplete  and  our  selves  remain  to  that 
extent  unrealized  and  unexpressed.  And  if  any  of  our 
fellows  is  unfit  for  the  life  of  free  social  intercourse,  then, 
for  us  too,  the  world  is  so  far  poorer.  No  man  of 
common  intelligence  can  find  a  satisfaction  in  the 
degradation  of  his  fellows.  No  man  of  high  intelligence 
can  find  the  sight  of  it  endurable.  Nor  would  he 
deliberately  elect  to  live  in  a  social  environment  of 
which  the  distinction  of  "inferiors"  were  an  essential 
part  of  the  idea.  But  as  the  range  of  imagination  is 
broadened  through  civilization  and  culture,  the  circle 
is  constantly  extended  of  those  whose  freedom  and 
dignity  are  our  intimate  personal  concern.  So  that, 
in  the  end,  we  may  all  say,  with  Kant,  "Es  kann  nichts 
entsetzlicher  sein,  als  dass  die  Handlungen  eines  Menschen 
unter  dem  Willen  eines  anderen  stehen  sollen;"  no  idea 
is  more  intolerable  than  that  of  the  subjection  of  one 
will  to  another.  All  of  this  is  implied  in  our  individ- 
ualism. And  when  I  stand  for  a  measured  and  con- 
trolled social  intercourse  it  is  not  to  exalt  a  narrowness 
of  aim,  but  simply  to  recall  to  your  consideration  that 
this  fellowship  of  free  beings  —  this  brotherly  love, 
if  you  please  —  is  not  a  fact  but  an  ideal,  not  a  con- 
dition but  a  theory,  something  not  to  be  assumed  but 
to  be  won;  and  to  be  won,  again,  not  by  an  assumption 
of  unity,  but  by  a  mutually  intelligent  self-assertion 
and  adjustment  of  social  relations. 


A     000  670 1  613 


